Mind serves brain & brain serves body

The mind serves the brain and the brain serves the body. This is the central story of us, of what sort of beings we are.

We are wonderful bodies with wonderful brains which produce wonderful consciousness.

However, thanks to cultural traditions which originated centuries ago, most of us are confused and think things are switched around. We believe the body serves the brain, and that the brain houses the most important thing about us: the mind.

Instead of attributing the wonderfulness of consciousness to our wonderful brains and bodies, tradition has convinced us that our wonderful mind comes from and serves an even more wonderful Mind or Consciousness outside of our bodies, indeed outside of all bodies.

To be honest, this is messed up.¹

It’s a mental disease which leaves us forever trying to comprehend why we (as our mind or consciousness) were put here on earth, and how things all fit together.

And things can’t quite make sense, though we humans try hard to invent explanations and stories to convince ourselves we are being sensible. Our disease relies on the peer pressure of religion, because without that (and without the constant encouragement and propping up we must continually give ourselves) doubt will invade.

And if minds are what we are and all we are, doubt is scary. It threatens to take away the great Mind or Consciousness which gives us meaning and purpose. And without that, we know we would feel utterly lost. We would feel worthless, useless, and frightened.

In reality our minds need not worry. Consciousness has a worth and a purpose, which is to serve the brain. The mind is how the brain improves itself.

And likewise, the brain serves the body. Unless it’s actively producing healthy consciousness, the brain can’t make good, complex decisions which benefit the body.

And this body, with its brain and consciousness, is what we are. We exist for here, for wonderful earth. This is our why.

And we are wonderful. (We are a sort of trinity—body, brain, consciousness—at least if we disregard all the other wonderful organs in our bodies).

But the body does not serve the brain or the mind. When we start thinking in this backwards way (the way almost all of us were taught throughout childhood) we end up with brains organized to produce inconsistent and confused thoughts about ourselves and the world— thoughts which simply do not fit the reality of what we are or what the world is.

Confused and defensive, our minds learn to insist that the whole world must be the product of a great Mind. And that somehow we individual minds must have some important role to play in this great Mind’s world. We minds must be important! And furthermore, we minds must go on forever, fulfilling an essential part of this great eternal story.

It’s not the worst mental illness we could have. It doesn’t seem to have endangered our survival as a species, and may even have enabled successful cultural tribes and alliances to organize and flourish in a military sort of way under a core leadership.

Being willing to conquer and die for your group, confident you will still exist after life is over, may have been socially beneficial to expanding tribes or nations and contributed to their success against other humans.

But today, when we’ve run out of earth to conquer, when our future survival requires us to transcend our individual tribes and nations, afterlife beliefs are detrimental. Being confused about what we are is detrimental.

And thus our previously benign mental illness is now detrimental.

1. See also: https://medium.com/outdoor-poetry/muse-is-the-antidote-5ba80c23c7e6