Mind (Soul) vs. Body; Material vs. Spiritual

There is a great issue that infects and influences the thinking process of most individuals across the entire planet. That issue involves a dichotomy that has existed in philosophy since Plato and is, in its current form, destroying everything.

The purpose of this post will be to delve into the original dichotomy and explore its meaning if one accepts one side or the other. Then I will question whether or not this dichotomy is valid. Lastly, I will analyze a modern form of this dichotomy.

Before proceeding further, I will offer my standard disclaimer and these words: I will rely heavily on some Rand quotes because these are complex philosophical issues that I am not expert in; however, I am still using my own mind to conduct the analysis and discussion of the issues involved here. Furthermore, I use the terms ‘soul’ or ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ interchangeably throughout the post, but all refer to the same thing, to the mental processes that form the unique individual that is oneself.

To begin with, let us consider one side of the soul-body dichotomy, the soul.

If one accepts this alternative of the dichotomy, then what that means is that one views the consciousness as being supreme in all things i.e. the mind is what dominates and creates reality. The implication of this is a disdain for all things physical/material. This disdain arises from the fact that, on this side of the dichotomy, ‘spirit’ is above mortal comprehension and that the ‘soul’ is tied to the material/physical world by being trapped in a flesh & blood body. This leads one to want to control and dominate the material world while demanding that things relating to the ‘spiritual’ or ‘intellectual’ world be left free. This all arises because one asserts that the Soul is primary in all matters and that the Body is merely a vessel or chain that, unfortunately, houses and constrains the mind.

Switching sides, consider if one accepts the other side of the dichotomy, the body.

In this case one views that things simply are, but that one has no means to identify what or how they are, just that they are. The Mind or Soul are relegated to a position of non-existence or [at best] a secondary place to all things relating to the material world. This will lead one to view oneself as a walking talking slab of meat whose body is controlled by unknowable forces because the Mind is non-existent. It follows that, on this side, one values freedom in the material or physical realm but wants control over the spiritual or intellectual realm.

Think about this for a moment. If one accepts the Soul part of the dichotomy, then one is forced, by the nature of that choice, to demean, devalue, and disdain the Material realm and one’s physical self; similarly, if one accepts the Body part of the dichotomy, then one is jettisoning one’s only tool of cognition [the Mind] into an, at best, secondary position and condemning all things spiritual or intellectual to non-useful status.

As Rand describes it:

“They have cut man in two, setting one half against the other. They have taught him that his body and his consciousness are two enemies engaged in deadly conflict, two antagonists of opposite natures, contradictory claims, incompatible needs, that to benefit one is to injure the other, that his soul belongs to a supernatural realm, but his body is an evil prison holding it in bondage to this earth — and that the good is to defeat his body, to undermine it by years of patient struggle, digging his way to that glorious jail-break which leads into the freedom of the grave.

They have taught man that he is a hopeless misfit made of two elements, both symbols of death. A body without a soul is a corpse, a soul without a body is a ghost — yet such is their image of man’s nature: the battleground of a struggle between a corpse and a ghost, a corpse endowed with some evil volition of its own and a ghost endowed with the knowledge that everything known to man is non-existent, that only the unknowable exists.

Do you observe what human faculty that doctrine was designed to ignore? It was man’s mind that had to be negated in order to make him fall apart. Once he surrendered reason, he was left at the mercy of two monsters whom he could not fathom or control: of a body moved by unaccountable instincts and of a soul moved by mystic revelations — he was left as the passively ravaged victim of a battle between a robot and a dictaphone.” (Atlas Shrugged)

As Leonard Peikoff writes in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand :

“[discussing the mind-body dichotomy] Suppose a man decides to cast his lot with the mind or soul, while shunning matter and the body. What are his options? He might spend his time daydreaming — but no; the realm of physical action has been rejected; he cannot dream about what anyone could or should do. He might become a religious ascetic, but then he cannot give his attitude any worldly expression; he cannot even lacerate the flesh or utter a prayer to God (certain ancient sects forbade prayer in order to cleanse their religion of ‘materialistic’ elements). He might become a hypocrite, as long as the theories he spins do not employ physical symbols (words) or make reference to physical objects. Or he might become catatonic, out of contact with reality, immobile, waxy flexible; that he can be — as long as some low-grade ‘materialist’ comes around to feed and bathe him.

“On the other hand, if a man rejects the realm of the mind and casts his lot instead with matter and action, with mindless, physical action, what are his options? He might become a sleepwalker — but no, he cannot count on any previous knowledge or any subliminal awareness to guide his movements. He might become a Nazi killer or a plain brute — if, somehow, someone could tell him whom to kill and by what means. Or, again, he might become a psychotic, this time of the manic variety, out of contact with reality and flailing around grotesquely” (pg. 196)

{I highly recommend reading that book to gain a more through understanding of both Objectivism and the topic I am writing about}

Let us take a step back and think about whether or not this is a valid dichotomy.

In reality, is it the case that humans are either a soul/mind trapped in a meat-suit or that they are walking slabs of meat with no self and no driving force?

A simple introspection and glance around reveals the answer.

Humans are beings of matter AND spirit i.e. they are integrated beings consisting of a physical body and a soul or spirit or consciousness. One cannot be divorced from the other.

The attempt to do so has devastated the philosophical and intellectual landscape since Plato through now. That devastation can be seen made manifest in the world around us. While the specific conflict and form of the dichotomy isn’t Soul vs. Body, the fact remains that that dichotomy lies at the root of most of the problems facing humans in the 21st century.

One of the main manifestations of this ancient dichotomy is the material vs. spiritual dichotomy.

As before, let us examine what it means to accept one side of the dichotomy over the other and explore the resulting implications of said choice.

First, if one is on the material side, then one will prioritize acquiring material possessions and experiencing material or physical things. They will have abandoned the spiritual realm and lose all interest in abstract notions like ‘morality’ ‘knowledge’ ‘principles’ etc.. A decent example of this is a hoarder. They horde all sorts of material goods, but at the cost of a severe mental breakdown with reality. Those material goods become, at best, substitutes for legitimate spiritual values.

On the spiritual side, then one forsakes the material world as ‘vulgar’ or ‘animalistic’ or some such. The best examples of this type of mentality are the dedicated saints of the Catholic church. They did everything in their physical lifetime to condemn and minimize the material realm in preparation for their ascension into their spiritual realm. Never mind the fact that, since human nature requires both material and spiritual values to fuel oneself, that the forsaking of the material realm will lead to, in logic and in due time, to a gradual diminished of any human spiritual value.

As Rand describes the modern manifestation of this dichotomy in politics:

“Both [conservatives and liberals] hold the same premise — the mind-body dichotomy — but choose opposite sides of this lethal fallacy.

The conservatives want freedom to act in the material realm; they tend to oppose government control of production, of industry, of trade, of business, of physical goods, of material wealth. But they advocate government control of man’s spirit, i.e., man’s consciousness; they advocate the State’s right to impose censorship, to determine moral values, to create and enforce a governmental establishment of morality, to rule the intellect. The liberals want freedom to act in the spiritual realm; they oppose censorship, they oppose government control of ideas, of the arts, of the press, of education (note their concern with “academic freedom”). But they advocate government control of material production, of business, of employment, of wages, of profits, of all physical property — they advocate it all the way down to total expropriation.

The conservatives see man as a body freely roaming the earth, building sand piles or factories — with an electronic computer inside his skull, controlled from Washington. The liberals see man as a soul freewheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe — but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread.

Yet it is the conservatives who are predominantly religionists, who proclaim the superiority of the soul over the body, who represent what I call the “mystics of spirit.” And it is the liberals who are predominantly materialists, who regard man as an aggregate of meat, and who represent what I call the “mystics of muscle.”

This is merely a paradox, not a contradiction: each camp wants to control the realm it regards as metaphysically important; each grants freedom only to the activities it despises. Observe that the conservatives insult and demean the rich or those who succeed in material production, regarding them as morally inferior — and that the liberals treat ideas as a cynical con game. “Control,” to both camps, means the power to rule by physical force. Neither camp holds freedom as a value. The conservatives want to rule man’s consciousness; the liberals, his body.” (Philosophy: Who Needs It 186)

Rand describes the intellectuals behind the liberals and conservatives:

“As products of the split between man’s soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter — the enslavement of man’s body, in spirit — the destruction of his mind.

The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive — a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society — a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth — to his great-grandchildren.” (Atlas Shrugged)

As Leonard Peikoff describes the issue:

“No rational field may be pitted against any other as ‘spiritual’ vs. ‘material.’ All proper fields require thought and action. All exemplify the integration of mind and body.

“By splitting apart thought and action, the doctrine of the mind-body dichotomy has subverted every rational virtue But it has had perhaps its most corrupting influence in regard to productiveness, which it brushes aside as morally meaningless and ultimately as nonexistent. In place of the producer, the dichotomy offers a choice between two human archetypes: the spiritualist, who scorns the world; and the materialist, who scorns the mind. The first disdains business, technology, money as vulgar concerns of man’s ‘lower nature’ and holds that knowledge should not be tainted by being used. The second disdains theory, abstractions, science as useless and holds that material goods should be accumulated without reference to them. Both types agree that reason plays no role in the sustenance of human life. Both agree that man survives as animals do: not by the moral process of production, but by consuming mindlessly whatever material values he finds already formed around him. One type then concludes that self-preservation is an unspiritual chore and that producers are nothing but animals. Survival, this type complains, is a regrettable practical requirement without intellectual or moral significance — in effect, a necessary evil. To which the other type rejoins: ‘So much for thought and virtue. Let’s be evil.’ (OPAR pg 296–7)

Given all of this, one can clearly see that this form of the soul-body dichotomy is equally as vicious and false as its original form.

One must always keep in mind that, one is a being made up of a mind [spirit] AND a body [material] and that the two are inseparable.

Thank you for reading

As always,

Choices=Reality