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-Yung Suk Kim, PhDI was struck by the concept of "thinking meat," a term quoted in The Mind & The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley (p. 21-23). This phrase originated in Terry Bisson's 1991 Omni magazine article. The idea presents a profound paradox, yet also a fundamental truth about our reality. We are meat that thinks. This implies that the thinking part is not separate from the flesh. This is, indeed, a radical notion; it challenges various forms of traditional dualism, notably Cartesian dualism. It also complicates a purely materialistic interpretation often associated with scientific positivism. When we consider the mind, it is not merely a separate machine, often equated solely with the brain, as some scientific views propose. Contemporary scientific understanding suggests that the mind represents the totality of our being. In this integrated view, mental elements interact with the entire body—including the brain—and the external world, encompassing spiritual dimensions. In this sense, neuropsychiatrist Daniel Siegel's observation is particularly apt, as he defines the mind (Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Norton, 2017).
"By mind, I mean all that relates to our subjective felt experience of being alive, from feelings to thoughts, from intellectual ideas to inner sensory immersions before and beneath words, to our felt connections to other people and our planet. And mind also refers to our consciousness, the experience we have of being aware of this felt sense of life, the experience of knowing within awareness." (1)The idea of “thinking meat” also resonates with Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and ethics, both of which take the location of the flesh seriously. He emphasizes that our genuine understanding of something does not arise from thinking alone; it must emerge through our bodily experience in the world. See his work Oneself as Another (University of Chicago Press, 1995).
"Mind is the essence of our fundamental nature, our deepest sense of being alive, here, right now, in this moment." (1)
"Yet beyond consciousness and its knowing within awareness of our subjective felt sense of being alive, mind may also involve a larger process, one that connects us to each other and our world. This important process is a facet of mind that may be hard to measure, but is nevertheless a crucial aspect of our lives we'll explore in great depth in the journey ahead." (1)
"Though we may not be able to quantify in numerical terms these facets of our mind at the heart of the experience of being here in this life, this intrinsically felt subjective phenomenon of living, and the ways we can feel our connections to one another and the world, are subjective phenomena that are real. These non-measurable facets of the reality of life have many names. Some call this our essence. Some call this our core, soul, spirit, or true nature. I simply call this mind." (1-2).
The points above highlight four pillars of mental health: biological, psychological, social, and spiritual.