Descartes was an interesting sorta fella wasn't he? 'Cogito ergo Sum'. I think therefore I am.
We exist because we are thinking things and therefore we are distinct from our bodies, non-thinking things. The mind can exist independently of the body and possibly go on ad nauseam. The mind pulls the levers of the body but not the other way around.
Writing as someone that currently feels dazed and brain dead I am pretty convinced that this cannot be true and that, in fact, my typing fingers have thoughts of their own. Electrical currents independent of my brain causing squiggly black characters to appear somewhat coherently onto a blank page. This 'coherence' is something for you, dear reader, to judge.
Another reason I stand in opposition to Descartes--clears throat importantly--is owing to my identity as a thespian. I am convinced that moving your body in strange and exciting new ways can cause strange and exciting new thoughts, ergo the body can influence the mind. This is also, quite possibly, the bedrock of drama and the theory of another interesting sorta fella. Cue, enter: Augusto Boale.
Boale believes in de-mechanizing the body; that by undoing and unlearning habitual bodily postures and movements we can think less rigidly and by extension, more creatively. If we undo the body we undo the mind. (I also can't help but read the last sentence in a Californian accent).
He took it one step further, we can 'feel meaning'. Mic drop.
I should now go and dance around the room madly in an attempt to rewire my dozing brain. The above ramble was my attempt at philosophizing a philosophy class that I was moderating and not understanding. Solution: make it theatre.
I must also attend to my bodily needs (which are very much affecting my mind)--a rumbling tummy and a thirst for wine. Friday am I right?
xoxo I think I'm hungry therefore I am hungry
Comments