There is a constant debate between scientists on what is mind, what is brain, and where the mind exists. This is not a new debate, it has been under contention for at least hundreds of years. As Renee Descartes paved the way for logical, rational thinking the mind moved from out of the metaphysical into the physical. Because logical, rational thought (versus, perhaps post-logical and post-rational) are still the primary mode of scientific inquiry after over 400 years we are still looking for the “man inside the radio”, ie, the mind inside the brain.
While there are many who are urging mainstream science to look in a new direction (Sheldrake, Chopra, Penrose etc) they are still the minority voice.
In Reorganizational Healing and Epi-Energetics we see the brain as something that receives thought. The type of thoughts we receive are based on the amount of information and energy we can approach any given situation with.
A new book published by Dan Siegel is offering a viewpoint that is synergistic with the ROH perspective. Siegel is a professor at the UCLA school of Psychiatry and his new book is called Mind: A Journey into the Heart of Being Human.
In a recent article published in the online journal Quartz Siegel shared some interesting perspectives from the book. Siegel’s definition of mind is:
“the emergent self-organizing process, both embodied and relational, that regulates energy and information flow within and among us.”
In this definition we see thermodynamics, entrainment and emergence in a post-rational perspective. The definition first emerged over 20 years ago in a meeting of over 40 scientists from varying fields. In anthropology and sociology it is easy to see how mind is something that would move not just in us but also between us. This consensus pulls science out of the aforementioned 400-year-old reductionistic rut.
Its important to understand that that the post-rational views are not suggesting that the mind is not in the brain, its just that its not only in the brain. All good developmental models of understanding systems create a “transcend and include” framework to inclusively incorporate what has come before and avoid the “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” that can so often happen as new theories are posited.
The article further shares:
Siegel realized the mind meets the mathematical definition of a complex system in that it’s open (can influence things outside itself), chaos capable (which simply means it’s roughly randomly distributed), and non-linear (which means a small input leads to large and difficult to predict result).
This is identical with how we see the Nervous System in Reorganizational Healing! Siegel asserts that self-organizing systems that become too rigid, lacking novelty lead to mental illness, which conversely suggests that a mind that is adaptable, flexible and strong will demonstrate health. This is a mind that can handle change, novelty and use that as transformational fuel.
Siegel is focusing further research in Namibia where he says that happiness is based on a much more social definition. He has found the United States to be disconnected and, in part, wrote the book as a statement to the isolation, misery and apathy he sees here.
All of this is one more tick in the post-rational, field mediated emergent definition of mind that is perfectly congruent with what we share and teach in Reorganizational Healing. While Siegel is focusing on just mind (Lower and Upper Mental Energetic Intelligences) this interconnected definition can also apply to physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of the self.
This post-rational view of mind is gaining ground, as the tide turns it will further position NSA, SRI and the Reorganizational Technologies at the forefront of the healing world.
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