A friend of mine, a physicist and Christian (if I were to put the attributes in the right order, I would be at a loss – at least if this post is anything to go by; sorry, Francis) works for a high-brow institute in Warsaw and is involved in some sophisticated research concerning the mind, language and brain (I am not sure what the latter one has got to do with the former two, but apparently it has).
He told me, in some confidentiality (sorry, Francis), that his biggest scientific ambition is to show that – or rather ‘how’, as he already assumed ‘that’ - thought can spring from the brain (and thus make it tangible for science and qualifying for scientific description, if not understanding*).
I immediately said to him that something will have to give: either his ambition or his faith. Naturally (an apt word in the context of his view) he disagreed and told me me about another conversation he’d had about the mind-body problem, an equally pithy one.
A few months earlier he was a guest at the wedding of one of his close friends. There, he met an architect who was knocking back his vodkas at a quite brisk pace. As it tends to happen at many Polish weddings, the relaxed atmosphere and alcohol were conducive to frank conversations and soon the man learnt what I now knew too: that my friend’s ambition was to solve the mind-body problem. The man showed interest in the issue. Unfortunately, his interest was being hampered by one factor: the pace of his drinking was slowing the pace of his conversation.
“The answer is simple,” he managed to announce just before he closed his eyes and hanged down his head. He seemed to have dozed off.
My friend was keen to hear the answer, so he waited a moment. Then he more or less gave up hope that the solution of his quest would come so easily, but waited politely for another minute, just in case the man changed his mind about the timing of the nap. When he was about to move away, the architect raised his head, opened his eyes and said in a clear, fully-conscious way: “It’s impossible”. Then he went back to sleep.
(The architect was right. The mind-body problem will never be solved.
Along with a number of other aspects of human ‘nature’ - some of which I’ve mentioned here before – our mind’s ability to control our body is one of our divine attributes, which reflect the attributes of God himself; those divine human attributes link us most directly to the Creator and make us similar to him. It is because of them that we were described in the Bible as made “in his own image”.
Just like God, then, we possess a mind-boggling power to influence matter with thought, but unlike his, ours is a limited power.
It doesn’t follow that we are precluded from affecting with our thought that part of the Universe which is outside the scope of our immediate power, i.e. our body. The way our thoughts can make an impact on the rest of the physical – and mental or spiritual, for that matter – Universe is via God, or rather thanks to God – as we are talking about an influence through a personal relationship.
Being divine, those human attributes neither can be explained or understood by us, unless we receive the understanding from God himself, the sole giver of divine powers .)
*Oh, Ye confused scientists of little faith (sorry, Francis)! If you want to talk about the mind, you do philosophy, not science. I bet even dear Watson knows that.
