Is my mind something that only I experience and that belongs only to me? This question, so difficult to answer, has been at the basis of many philosophical investigations over the centuries.
In fact, René Descartes, one of the most influential thinkers in the birth of Psychology as a science (although he died long before its appearance), took as a starting point an idea closely related to this topic: the French philosopher assumed that the fact of experiencing our own mental activity is one of the only certainties of which we can be sure, given that everything that goes beyond this can deceive us through the senses: “I think, therefore I am.” Our existence as conscious entities is what we never doubt.
Now, something that is closely linked to our consciousness is the emotions that we experience mixed in it: it is practically impossible to be conscious and at the same time not feel in any way; Spontaneously, we evaluate our emotional state, whether the sensations that our environment transmits to us are good or bad, etc. And if we add to this that Emotions cannot be reduced to words, it is not surprising that many people see emotions as something totally private and subjective, or even independent of their body and everything earthly in general. To what extent is this view of the human mind accurate?
Two main positions regarding the mind-body relationship
There are several ways to understand the link that exists between the concept of “emotions” and the concept of “body.” Several of them can be grouped into the philosophical perspective that we call dualism: the idea that one thing is the human mind and another clearly different thing is the human body and all its organic and material components in general.
This position, represented among other thinkers by Descartes, shows the human being as a soul imprisoned in the material prison of his own organism In fact, the French philosopher proposed that in the human brain there is a structure, the pineal gland, from which the incorporeal being of each human being controls the “machine” of the body from the sensory information that reaches it through the imperfect circuitry of the latter.
Other philosophical positions opposed to dualism are included in philosophical monism, and specifically, in materialist monism (there is also a non-materialist monism, but it has little influence currently).
This perspective considers that both emotions and all psychological states in general are a simple product of the organic processes of the body, and that the fact that we experience subjectivity as something private and reserved exclusively for each person is more than an illusion. Which of these two ways of understanding the human mind is more accurate? Although this issue has not yet been completely settled and it will by no means be resolved in a short article like the one you are reading, I would like to show you that both positions offer a part of truth.
Why do emotions exist?
Can we say that emotions are a phenomenon totally disconnected from the material? Decades of research show us that it would be unwise to think in these terms. We must not forget that if philosophers like Descartes reserved for human beings a privileged position in access to transcendence through the capacity to have a soul, it was partly due to a series of religious and anthropocentric dogmas that were very popular in their time; however, Today we know that emotions are practically omnipresent in the animal kingdom, and this has nothing to do with whether or not they have a soul. The truth is that beyond how we subjectively experience emotions, the fact of experiencing emotions has practical effects: they predispose us to behave in one way or another.
What’s more, this predisposition is clearly reflected in our actions through the behavioral patterns that we activate in a more spontaneous and less premeditated way. What makes us emotional beings is our biological inheritance, all a series of physiological and neuroendocrine mechanisms that we have obtained from our ancestors because they were and are key to survival
That is why emotions almost always come before reason. Specifically, brain structures such as the limbic system, closely connected to ancestral parts of the nervous system and present in all vertebrates, are the ones responsible for making it possible for us to feel one way or another: in this way we react quickly to danger. , we learn from our mistakes and our successes without having to stop to reflect much, etc. If the brain is a machine for learning and predicting possible future situations based on what has happened to us, emotions are the fuel of our motivation, which leads us to have reasons to progress and learn.
However, Assuming that emotions are simply a consequence of brain activity is also not correct We cannot equate emotions with hormones and neurotransmitters and other substances secreted by our body, among other things because these depend on our way of thinking and interacting with the environment and with others. And both language and the ability to think about our own mental states, what is known as metacognition, are phenomena as natural in humans as the activation of neurons.
That is why understanding our moods, our emotions and feelings is not an “artificial” process nor secondary to the biological; It is an essential part of the human experience. To assume otherwise would be like considering that Homo sapiens should not exist, given that we have evolved and prospered thanks to the use of tools and systems of symbols and words that do not arise from specific bodily structures, but from community life.
Therefore, the relationship between the mind and the body in relation to emotions is the following: Because we have a body, we cannot not feel, and because we are human beings, we can stop getting involved in understanding our “I” and the nature of what we feel
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