{Meaning (and Causes) [continued]}[8th September 1988]

[Redbook5:347][19880908:1215b]{Meaning (and Causes) [continued]}[8th September 1988]

19880908.1215

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I speculate that while chemical and electrical phenomena within the brain (and the rest of the body) may be the immediate causes of moods,* the appropriate causes giving rise to them may arise physically (eg from diet) or from the Mind’s stimulation of the Brain, ie by Meaning. Equally, observable phenomena within the Brain have no meaning other than that intrinsic to themselves, whatever that is, if any, which is not the meaning with which they are associated in our Minds. They are at most the Brain’s equivalent of words in communications: message carriers, or media, in which the ‘information’ (if any) which constitutes the carrier (and which conveys information about itself to the scientist) is distinct from the meaning of the message. Meaning is the matter of Mind.

From this it clear that Meaning can in theory exist independently of Medium** (even if in our Physical Universe the all-embracing nature of physicality seems to make that unlikely or impossible). Given that the Mind cannot be defined other than as Meaning – which is also how I should define the Soul, but not, I think, the Spirit – it seems to follow that the Mind or the Soul, can exist in theory independently of the Medium (or Physical Matter), even if that is unlikely within the Physical Universe.

*[See last previous entry.]

**McLuhan notwithstanding?

[Herbert Marshall McLuhan CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual. His work is one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the U.S. and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. McLuhan is known for coining the expression "the medium is the message" and the term global village, and for predicting the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. (Wikipedia)]

["The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.(Wikipedia)]

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