No, there is no solitary homunculi of reason that sits in the captain’s chair of our conscious mind, controlling everything we do. So, so much goes on “out of sight” — beyond/beneath our awareness.
Consider this recent psychological finding: Touch: How a hard chair creates a hard heart
In a series of six experiments documented in the June 25 issue of the journal Science, a Yale-led team of psychologists demonstrated how dramatically our sense of touch affects how we view the world.
Interviewers holding a heavy clipboard, compared to a light one, thought job applicants took their work more seriously. Subjects who read a passage about an interaction between two people were more likely to characterize it as adversarial if they had first handled rough jigsaw puzzle pieces, compared to smooth ones. And people sitting in hard, cushionless chairs were less willing to compromise in price negotiations than people who sat in soft, comfortable chairs. [emphasis added]
A co-author of the study, John A. Bargh, went a little “meta” with this comment:
“The old concepts of mind-body dualism are turning out not to be true at all,” Bargh said. “Our minds are deeply and organically linked to our bodies.”
But I wonder. Rather than being linked, could we say that mind is something the body does?
July 1st, 2010 at 10:26 pm
I have mirror touch synesthesia. As a confirmed skeptic, even though I had it, I didn’t believe it until it was proven by science. Now, when I read about findings like these, I wonder how different it would be for me. I spent a couple of hours today with a friend who’s growing a beard which itches. This meant that he touched his face a lot. When others touch their faces, I usually feel a tickle, which makes me touch my face to make it stop tickling. My friend knows I have mirror touch, so when he sees me touch my face, he becomes aware that he is touching his. It’s all very weird. If I were blind, I wouldn’t feel other’s touches. I leave it to you to fit this into your mind/body theory.