With their most recent trendy research of consciousness and mind, neuroscientists enter the domain that used to be reserved for philosophers. And although we should carefully guard that they do not fall into any reductionist traps, it is time that we move back towards the human body, and that our culturally embedded mind/body dualism is shaken up.
We already know that nature, not wasting anything, has had the brain evolve in different stages. The human brain produces behavior, mind and consciousness, but the brains of other animals produce behavior only, or often also mind but not always consciousness. It depends on their place in the evolutionary tree.
Basically, however, at cell level, it was (and still is) a question of increasing the efficiency with which our organism - this complex community of cells - is able to react to external influences, thus responding to the common drive of every single cell to live. (Can it still surprise us that Buddhism considers the mind as the sixth sense?)
The parallels with our human socio-cultural community are obvious. They are rooted in our cells; the unity of all living beings is literally physical in origin. Man, and mankind, are each a complex living community, and with every fiber of his body man provides "the blueprint for the thought patterns and intentions of the conscious mind" (Damasio), and évery individual, without exception, contributes to the community.
In which light does this bring such themes like discrimination, mental illness, loneliness, suicide?
