Several of the questions presuppose the idea that minds can exist separated from the body. — Harry Hindu

Well yea, since the OP opens with: "If the mind is immaterial:"
The post asks to explore the viability of the alternate POV where there are two separate things, or where matter supervenes on mind. Given the wording of the post, I'd say more the former of those two.

I ask, "What is the point of a mind separated from a body?"

Or the point of a mind not consisting of a body?

All the above post seems to be about the mind being a function/process of the brain (or larger self), and sure, I am on that side of the fence, but I think the OP was asking about the opposite, where the body is a byproduct/purposeful-extension of the mind. The body seems to poorly implement such a purpose.

• how can a brain (with all the various properties of material objects), be caused to do something by something that lacks all material properties (no mass, no energy, no charge, and no location in space)? Or does the mind actually have some material properties? If so, which ones? — Relativist

FWIW : These are just a few personal opinions on the brain/mind paradox :
# The brain is not caused by the mind. The brain causes the mind. The causal power of the brain is energy, which produces functional outputs (i.e. mind, thought, ideas, reasoning, behavior).
# The mind is a metaphysical process, not a physical thing. The mind is a system of relationships. Relationships over time form a process.
# The mind is what the brain does, its function. The mind is located in the body, in the same sense that all functions are associated with their interrelated system . Computation is the function of the integrated system we call a computer.
# The mind has one material property : the brain. Brain and Mind together are a whole system. Brain alone is a piece of meat. Mind alone is nothing. Together, they produce the effect we call "Thought".
# We can imagine a disembodied Mind/Soul, because our thinking brains have the ability to generate images of things that are not currently perceivable to the senses (e.g. the future). The mental image of the mind is an idea. It has no causal power, unless it is translated into physical action.
# We can imagine a First Cause, which is the power (energy, EnFormAction) to produce all of the effects (forms) in reality, including material physical Brains and immaterial metaphysical Minds. Is the existence of a First Cause reasonable? That depends on values in the mind doing the reasoning. The chain (web) of causation over time has produced localized Body/Minds, that in turn cause behaviors that affect the real world. One of those behaviors is to ask philosophical questions about material objects, and immaterial functions.

Function : In mathematics, a function is a relation between sets that associates to every element of a first set exactly one element of the second set. . . . a relation from a set of inputs to a set of possible outputs. https://mathinsight.org/definition/function
In other words, function is holistic in that it is related to all members of the set that causes a specific effect (e.g. patterns of action, output, work, behavior)

The belief in any brain/mind paradox is a linguistic glitch. The mind is immaterial, whether it is entirely a function of the material brain or a property of the "soul." The mind involves complex exchanges of energy, which are not material.

For example, the computer programs enabling this conversation are themselves not material, although they operate within computer processors that are composed entirely of matter.

An additional distinction might clarify the confusion. Matter is an obvious component of the physical universe. However, there are many components of the physical universe that are NOT MATERIAL-- light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, gravitational force, electric charge, magnetic fields, nuclear binding energy, etc.

The "mind" is necessarily immaterial. It is, of course a function of some physical mechanism. That may be the brain, but I think not. More likely, mind is a function of brain interacting with a physical (and immaterial) version of the traditional soul, according to principles of physics that we've yet to discover.

Perhaps the important point to integrate into your mind's beliefs is that the terms "physical" and "material" are not synonyms.

The mind is certainly not material, but it must be physical.
GL

The mind involves complex exchanges of energy, which are not material. — Greylorn Ell

Not so much energy, as meaning. Energy and matter are interchangeable, but as Norbert Weiner, founder of cybernetics, said 'Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.' (Quoted here.)

And the principles which govern meaning are much more like semantics than like physics. The rules of semantics operate quite independently to those of physics, comprising, as they do, the relationship between ideas, not between mass, energy, velocity, and the various other parameters which define the entities of physics.

The mind is certainly not material, but it must be physical... — Greylorn Ell

...we hope!

Materialism has many things going in its favor. I especially like Sam Harris' argument about how materialism is supported by current neuroscience. Injury to specific parts of the brain produces corresponding deficits in cognition. Ergo, he says, how can it be that after death when the entire brain goes kaput the mind can continue on?

Granted that materialism is true and the mind is nothing more than the brain doing its thing, what concerns me is our tendency to identify ourselves and others with the beliefs and ideas (mind-stuff) that we hold. We seem to completely ignore that we're physical beings - our bodies being considered simply as loci of ideas and beliefs, the mind-stuff. More people have died for their beliefs than their physical appearance; it gives me the impression that people consider identity and being as more mind than body.

Wayfarer,
I can't dismiss a word you wrote. All valid, but not really pertinent to anything I wrote. I'm a physicist of sorts, not a philosopher. Here's what I know about the subject I addressed.

"Meaning" is philosophical BS. Until philosophical pinheads can explain why using the wrong vowel in a noun entirely changes the meaning of a statement voiced in Russian, but why anyone speaking conventional US English in a Chinese laundry will easily understand, "No tickee, no shirtee,," the entire subject of "semantics" will remain a useless, padded foil for intellectual pinheads who are incapable of addressing any serious subject.

If semantics is your thing, enjoy it. I'm not interested in wading in that mud.

I've not heard of or directly studied N. Weiner, although most of my really nasty courses in EE must have been derived from some of his work in energy transmission;. Not an authority to be dismissed, although he was, like many pioneers in idea development, not widely recognized.

I think a bit differently, or perhaps express myself poorly.. Information is not energy or matter-- however, it is encoded and transmitted (conventionally) using matter or forms of energy. Any physical mechanism that has access to and is capable of interpreting lots of sensory information has the potential to host, or become, a mind.

However, only if it is also capable of violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics, can it persist.

GL

"Meaning" is philosophical BS — Greylorn Ell

well, I would hope that you can see that, if this were true, then it would be pointless for you to write anything whatever, as the only point of writing in this context is to convey meaning. You may not, as you say, be a philosopher, but one would hope that in joining a philosophy forum, you might actually be interested in the subject.

Injury to specific parts of the brain produces corresponding deficits in cognition. — TheMadFool

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/

My thesis is that this is a foolish question Of course I exist and rows exist and arrangements exist. But these arrangements are arranged stuff not more stuff or immaterial stuff. I exist, I am an arrangement, or a complex relationship analogous to a whirlpool. Is a whirlpool material? does a whirlpool exist? Nobody needs to ask. But folks want to get bogged down in complex physics and psychology as if that is easier to understand. Get your ducks in a row first. — unenlightened

I don't follow how an arrangement of physical matter is at all like a phenomenological state. The former is an empirically identifiable description of physical objects located in clearly defined time and space. The latter is unidentifiable empirically and the subjective experience is to some degree ineffable. It's not even fully clear where it exists in space.

The solution isn't just about defining the self in terms of it being a descriptor of the various arrangements (as you say) of the mental activity going on inside the mind, but in explaining what the mental states ( whether arranged or not) are ( i.e. can they be meaningfully defined with physical descriptors).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/ — Wayfarer

:up: :smile: Wayfarer, always great to read your posts.

"Meaning" is philosophical BS. Until philosophical pinheads can explain why using the wrong vowel in a noun entirely changes the meaning of a statement voiced in Russian, but why anyone speaking conventional US English in a Chinese laundry will easily understand, "No tickee, no shirtee,," the entire subject of "semantics" will remain a useless, padded foil for intellectual pinheads who are incapable of addressing any serious subject. — Greylorn Ell

Someone is having a difficult time in isolation.

Granted that materialism is true and the mind is nothing more than the brain doing its thing, what concerns me is our tendency to identify ourselves and others with the beliefs and ideas (mind-stuff) that we hold. We seem to completely ignore that we're physical beings - our bodies being considered simply as loci of ideas and beliefs, the mind-stuff. More people have died for their beliefs than their physical appearance; it gives me the impression that people consider identity and being as more mind than body., — TheMadFool

Most people are not materialists, so you can't say they're ignoring it. It seems to me it's natural to think of ourselves in mental terms. It's reasonable on cold, objective terms: at distinguishes us from one another. But more importantly, mental processes motivate us to act - we act intentionally, and we do (or try to do) what we want to do.

It seems to me that it is correct to view ourselves in this way. I am not JUST physical - I am process. A corpse is not a human person because there's an absence of process. Process is produced by the physical, but it is not identical to the physical.

It's unfortunate we die for reasons associated with brain processes, but that consequence is not a reason to abandon our natural tendency.

By my reckoning, an actual row of 3 actual ducks is a material state of affairs (a thing). — Relativist

States of affairs (i.e. complex objects) exist that have the properties we associate with rows. — Relativist

A state of affairs is not a thing that exists, it is a relation that is real--either between different concrete things or between a concrete thing and an abstract quality. Predicate terms denote such qualities or relations (form/essence), subject terms denote things (matter/existence), and propositions signify states of affairs by attributing predicates to subjects (entelechy/reality).

Wayfarer,
Good point, fairly taken, and a perfect example of the worthlessness of the "meaning" concept, in that here we are whining about the meaning of "meaning." Can we please discuss something (that I think is) interesting?

My intention here is to convey ideas and concepts, perhaps in the context of valid information. Everyone who reads and examines anything I (and most others) write will interpret it in the context of their beliefs, which are almost always wrong, and they will come away with their own "meaning." I cannot be responsible for that. The best I can do is propose what seem to me to be solutions to problems.

My interests are simply the nature of consciousness and whatever potential it might have. I solved Chalmer's "Hard Problem" about 30 years before he formalized it, but have had little success at presenting it, because my solution is well outside any currently accepted paradigms, religious or materialist. I would prefer to kick ideas around on a good physics forum, but those guys have become rather stuffy and offer no place for unconventional ideas.

Philosophers may not have the kind of background as physicists, but they are generally more tolerant.

I actually studied some philosophy and took a post-grad course. I appreciated Descartes (more mathematician than philosopher) and my ideas would fit into the "dualistic" category of conventional thinkers if not for several significant divergences.

After considerable experience, I regard philosophers as people dumb enough to believe that they can understand anything about the nature of the universe, and of the humans populating a tiny part of it, without understanding basic physics. Scientists are dogmatic thinkers who insist that if they cannot explain something, it does not exist; thus they are always right.

GL

Wayfarer,
You'll get no argument on this from me. I've studied neuro-anatomy and some of Wilder Penfield's open-brain research from 80-odd years ago, plus the Phineas Gage "crowbar" incident. But that stuff is third-party and anecdotal. More to the point, I've gotten falling-down drunk. The brain does not need to be overtly damaged to become severely dysfunctional.

Physical Dualism explains the issue effectively. Suppose that to some extent, Descartes was right, and that a soul-like entity is indeed connected to the human brain. If so, consider "mind" as the effect of brain and "soul" working together.

By analogy, consider a car and its driver-- imagine the brain as the car, a reasonably complex machine going nowhere without a driver to guide it. They are, to some extent, interdependent.

What happens if the car is damaged? Once, driving 85 on a desert interstate road, a coyote chose a poor time to cross. The beast died, and my car's left front suspension assembly was warped. I finished my 240 mile journey with screwed up steering in a vehicle that wanted to go sideways and off the road.

Impair the brain, and naturally, any "soul" connected to it will have a more difficult time.

I've not done much research of late and was unaware of the "tiny brain" phenomenon or Cotard's syndrome. Thank you for the excellent and pertinent reference! I must consider the implications.

You seem to be well and diversely read, more so than myself. I welcome further input.

GL

I don't follow how an arrangement of physical matter is at all like a phenomenological state. — Hanover

When you say "phenomenological state" it sounds like a thing, but it isn't a thing, it's a relationship. Specifically its the relationship of a life-form to it's environment, where its environment includes its own state. Just as "in a row" is the relationship of the ducks to each other.

So when one hears, "...the mind is nothing more than the brain doing its thing, ..." it sounds wrong, and it is wrong, because it leaves out half of what the mind is - the mind is nothing less than the brain doing the world.

the mind is nothing less than the brain doing the world. — unenlightened

We contemplate all sorts of ways the world is not.

how can a brain (with all the various properties of material objects), be caused to do something by something that lacks all material properties (no mass, no energy, no charge, and no location in space)? Or does the mind actually have some material properties? If so, which ones?
• If minds occupy a specific location in space, where is this? Does it occupy the same space as the brain?
• How does the brain deliver sights and sounds to the mind? For example, does every neuron connect to the mind, or only certain ones, or combinations?
• If a mind can become detached from a body (as in an OBE), how is it able to perceive what is happening in the absence of being connected to sense organs? If sense organs aren’t needed when disembodied, why are they needed when paired with the body?
• Do minds pre-exist bodies, or do they come into existence with the body? If the latter, when? At fertilization? Does it develop in parallel with the brain?
• What ties a specific mind to a specific body? E.g. if a mind causes me to raise my arm, why can’t my mind cause you to raise your arm?
• If my mind causes me to raise my arm, and simultaneously your mind causes you to raise your arm, how do we know it wasn’t my arm causing your arm to raise, and your mind causing my arm to raise?
• Memories are lost when brains are damaged from trauma or disease, suggesting memories are encoded in the brain. If memories are physical, and destroyed as the brain decomposes at death, but your mind survives, in what sense is that mind still YOU? i.e. what aspects of YOU is your disembodied mind? — Relativist

A brain is not caused to do something by the mind, and the mind is not caused to do something by the brain. The two (brain and mind) exist parallel with eachother.
Minds do occupy a specific location in space, that is, the location of the matter which they are parallel with.
The brain does not deliver sights and sounds to the mind. The mind is parallel to the brain which is impinged in certain ways in which a parallel process happens in the mind.
A mind cannot become detached from a body. All bodies have a corresponding mind, and vice versa.
Minds do not pre-exist bodies, or vice versa, bodies pre-exist minds. The two are parallel with eachother, and any unfolding/"new-existing"/change in one is parallel with the unfolding in the other.
That the mind "causes you" to raise your arm is nothing but an interpretation in your mind parallel to some body.
The idea of ME is itself just a part of my mind parallel with my body. When you lose the ability to identify "I", then your body/mind is no longer "yours".

I believe this answers your questions clearly. Have a nice day.

We contemplate all sorts of ways the world is not. — frank

So the brain is in a relationship of denial with the world, or a relationship of what-if, or ... the mind is not - and this is the point - in the brain, any more than the world is in the brain. Any more than the row is in the ducks

I see, yep.

We contemplate all sorts of ways the world is not. — frank

And then we bring about the way the world is not in our minds, to the world. Our imaginings can become reality. How does that happen if the world is material and the mind isn't?

magic

My interests are simply the nature of consciousness and whatever potential it might have. I solved Chalmer's "Hard Problem" about 30 years before he formalized it, but have had little success at presenting it, because my solution is well outside any currently accepted paradigms, religious or materialist. I would prefer to kick ideas around on a good physics forum, but those guys have become rather stuffy and offer no place for unconventional ideas. — Greylorn Ell

I'd be interested to hear a proposed solution. I'm pretty familiar with Chalmers but none the proposed solutions that I've encountered have come to grips with it; most of them are clearly a failure to comprehend it. But if you've got one, I'll be more than happy to give it a read.

I've studied neuro-anatomy and some of Wilder Penfield's open-brain research from 80-odd years ago, plus the Phineas Gage "crowbar" incident. But that stuff is third-party and anecdotal. — Greylorn Ell

I don't buy that. I think Wilder Penfield had a very large data-set to work with, spanning decades. He was a careful and meticulous scientist. And Phineas Gage's case was not simply an 'incident' - he had a crowbar blown right through his cranium by a stick of dynamite, and didn't die. He should have. That's an empirical fact.

Clearly there's an 'upward causation' of the material form of the brain to cognitive ability. That much is clear from myriad of injury and drug studies, and the like. But what of 'downward causation' - the cases where injured brains re-route all of their activities to compensate for damage to a particular area? Like where the parts of the brain usually associated with one function are re-purpose to execute another function? (This is associated with the discovery, thought revolutionary at the time, of neuroplasticity.) What drives that, other than something purpose-directed, and therefore teleological, in some sense? And where does 'downward causation' begin? Who says it doesn't begin in the very simplest forms of organic life?

After considerable experience, I regard philosophers as people dumb enough to believe that they can understand anything about the nature of the universe, and of the humans populating a tiny part of it, without understanding basic physics. — Greylorn Ell

Well, Galileo showed that if you throw a philosopher and a piano from the sixth floor of an apartment building, they'll both hit the ground at the same time. But I'm at a loss to understand how understanding such 'basic physics' has anything to say about the problems of philosophy whatever. Rather than 'dumb philosophers', it's more likely the case that philosophy itself is very poorly understood by today's presumptive materialism.

I'll try and unpack that. If you study the history of ideas, you will become acquainted with what has been called by some critics 'Galileo's error'. It's a very deep and difficult issue which I couldn't do justice to in a forum post. But suffice to say it revolves around the fateful division of nature into primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities, according to Galileo, were just those properties that lent themselves to quantization by the methods of Galileo's 'new science' - velocity, mass, acceleration and so on. (How convenient!) Whereas secondary qualities, usually given as taste, smell, color and so on, were relegated to the subjective domain of the observing mind. They were, in other words, subjectivised. This also coincided, in early modern history, with the ascendancy of the protestant emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual conscience, and also with Descartes' division of nature into res extensia and res cogitans.

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (pp. 35-36) — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

That, I suggest, is your paradigm or model; it's the basic model of the 'secular intelligentsia' - what 'reality' is thought to consist of, when the superstitious overlay of belief in the soul and so on have been scraped off it. Isn't that it?

Clearly there's an 'upward causation' of the material form of the brain to cognitive ability. That much is clear from myriad of injury and drug studies, and the like. But what of 'downward causation' - the cases where injured brains re-route all of their activities to compensate for damage to a particular area? — Wayfarer

The upward/downward distinction in causation is a little misleading. The problem with an appeal to downward causation is that the capacity for such causation is only provided for by complex organized structures. Then we need to account for the existence of such organized structures, and so we can only turn to upward causation. The route of downward causation is really a dead end, just leading us back to upward causation, because we cannot account for the way that downward causation could spontaneously appear when upward causation reaches some critical degree of organization.

Therefore I believe that we really ought to look for what appears to us as downward causation, existing inherently within upward causation. In other words, it's a distinct form of upward causation which gives the appearance of downward causation in its physical manifestations.

What drives that, other than something purpose-directed, and therefore teleological, in some sense? And where does 'downward causation' begin? Who says it doesn't begin in the very simplest forms of organic life? — Wayfarer

Yes, this is the issue here, the source of teleological, purpose-directed activity. It cannot be a downward causation, because it's evident in even the simplest life forms, while downward causation requires complex forms. So downward causation is a bit of a materialist ruse, requiring complex material structures, but not capable of accounting for the purpose-directed activity required to create those organized structures. This is why we need to turn to what might be called the immanency of such purpose-directed activity, what is inherent within such material existence, as the source of that type of activity.

This reversal, inversion, is the "reflection" referred to in Plato's cave analogy. Once we flip everything around, from the way that it appears to us cave-dwellers (as downward causation), and place "the good" in its proper location, as the initial cause (final cause, from the perspective of ending the regressive chain of efficient causation), then we see that the immaterial, at the very bottom, is the base, or foundation, for all material existence, through upward causation.

Mind is "immaterial" in the sense that thoughts (for example) are occurrences.
There's no conservation involved, like there is with the food we eat.
My supper is movable, my experiences thereof are interruptible.
And it so happens that my mind is uniquely associated with my body when occurring.
Consistent with evidence:

When you say "phenomenological state" it sounds like a thing, but it isn't a thing, — unenlightened

I would actually argue it's not a thing either, but that's because I'm probably more sympathetic to the classic substance dualist approach than most, which would hold that mental states are not "things" to the extent they are non-physical. That's not your position I understand, though.

The arrangement of ducks is a physical thing to the extent we are discussing the ducks' location. Location in space and time is part of what it means to be physical. The white pawns on a chess board are in the starting position a2, b2, c2... h2 (if you're familiar with chess notation). The row is located at a2 through h2. Their location in space and their relationship to one another strikes me as a physical attribute no different from other physical attributes. The duck similarly is a duck because its molecules are ordered in such a way as to make it a duck. The duck, according to you, is a thing and it's in the lake, despite the fact that the duck is nothing more than an arrangement of molecules. But I ask: how do you draw a distinction between ducks and rows in terms of the former being a thing and the other being an arrangement? Under analysis, it appears that if rows are simply non-thing/arrangements, then ducks would be that as well, considering the word "duck" simply describes how certain molecules are arranged in relation to other ones.

A phenomenological state, on the other hand, is an actual perception of something that is separate from the duck and it's separate from the brain. It's not just a row inside the brain, but if it is, show me where it is. Why can you point to rows and ducks but not phenomenological states if they are just different examples of the same thing?

Mind is "immaterial" in the sense that thoughts (for example) are occurrences.
There's no conservation involved, like there is with the food we eat.
My supper is movable, my experiences thereof are interruptible.
And it so happens that my mind is uniquely associated with my body when occurring. — jorndoe

Try having thoughts when you havent eaten or slept for days.

If the mind is causally connected with the rest of the world that does practice some form of conservation, then why wouldnt the mind? Thinking is hard work. Responding without thinking is easier.

A phenomenological state, on the other hand, is an actual perception of something that is separate from the duck and it's separate from the brain. — Hanover

I'm sorry, that looks like a word salad. For a first step, can you give me maybe an example of a non actual perception of something? My understanding has always been that the whole business of speaking of phenomena and perceptions is to bracket off 'actuality' as something problematic. As in an oasis-perception that might be of an actual oasis or of a mirage, but is always an 'actual' perception that is separate from the oasis in the sense that there might not be an oasis. A 'phenomenological state' is also problematic, but in a more vague way ... a state of phenomena? A state that consists of phenomena -

You see, when I get my ducks in a row, or my pawns if you like, I don't have to talk about phenomena or perceptions or brains, I don't see these things, I see a row of ducks. I think you are confusing yourself with all this terminology - you're certainly confusing me. I say my seeing a duck involves me and a duck.

The row is located at a2 through h2. — Hanover

This is also a very confusing thing to suggest. I thought that was where the pawns were. A row of squares and a row of pawns - eight pawns in a row, not eight pawns and a row

The row is not located because it is the location - of the pawns. Why do philosophers do this shit all the time - whenever the cat is on the mat, some philosopher will get all agitated looking for 'on'. How can the cat be on the mat unless there is an on? Where is it?

The problem with an appeal to downward causation is that the capacity for such causation is only provided for by complex organized structures. — Metaphysician Undercover

But that begs the question of where order arises in the first place. It's natural to assume that the mind is the product of the high degree of material organisation which has developed over the course of evolutionary history. But what is the source of order? Without there being order, then nothing complex, or actually nothing whatever, could have arisen in the first place. That is not a question I presume to have an answer to, but it is one of the basic questions of metaphysics nonetheless. Even big bang theory itself can't account for the order of nature; and I don't want to argue on that account for any kind of natural theology, other than to make the observation.

Downward causation doesn't necessarily act in the same way as upwards in any case. I think, in classical philosophy, the idea of a final cause, 'that towards which a thing tends', is not 'causal' in the material or efficient sense. It's the reason for something to exist in the sense of the purpose it intends. IN that sense, fire is the cause of the match, in that matches are only made in order to generate fire; but from the perspective of efficient causes, then matches obviously cause fire.

The white pawns on a chess board are in the starting position a2, b2, c2... h2 (if you're familiar with chess notation). The row is located at a2 through h2. Their location in space and their relationship to one another strikes me as a physical attribute no different from other physical attributes. — Hanover

Chess can be realised physically, but it is not itself physical. It’s a set of rules which can be represented by many different physical forms - but change one rule, and it’s no longer chess. And chess can be played with no pieces whatever; I read once that the Arabs used to play chess without boards whilst crossing the desert on camels, although I can't imagine ever pulling off such a feat myself.

Obviously chess is the product of the human mind, but the point about the nature of the order that it represents can be taken as an analogy for many other forms of symbolic order.

The point about the rational mind, in particular, is that it is the instrument which grasps relationships. And those relationships again may be represented physically, but it's senseless to say that they are physical.

I love the Wayfarer philosophy! Preach on!!!!