Chapter 5: What about our bodies

 

Our interactions with the external world are identified and stored as a collection of experiences (codes). The experiences do not show the true nature of the reality of the universe. Our sensory perceptions, which do not capture the true reality of the external objects are however, good enough for us to navigate in the world that we live in, survive and procreate. This is all that is there as far as the external world is concerned. But what about our bodies?

Like external objects the cells, tissues and organs in our bodies send stimulus to our brains which are also stored as specific experiences. Though we cannot experience vision, smell or taste for entities inside our bodies, yet we have other types of sensations that our peculiar to our bodies. The sensation of hunger is unique for our bodies. Same is true with the experience of thirst. The sensation of pain, however, is a common experience between the external universe and the internal world of our bodies. Though we could categorise the sensations and the corresponding experiences as that associated with external objects or those internal to our bodies, yet they all fall under the larger universe of our experiences. The process by which sensations gets created may differ between the outside world and our internal bodies but there is no difference in the structure of the sensory experiences whether originating outside our bodies or inside it. The same principal that holds true for external objects, also holds true for the sensory experiences originating from within our bodies, i.e., drive towards the good experiences (eat when feeling hungry) and avoid the bad experiences e.g., pain.

From the perspective of these experiences therefore there is no difference between our bodies and the external universe. Our brain perceives them as same though we have been able to identify and label each of the experiences and know whether they originate from within or outside our bodies. We can label different experiences based on their points of origin and the objects associated with them.

What about our brains? Surely the brain is a more complex piece of our biological system, but it too is same as any other parts of our bodies in the sense that it too sends sensory stimulus which are then stored as an experience in our memories. Don’t believe me … think of headaches. Hence, from the realm of our universe of experience, the body with all its parts, including the brain, together with every relevant object in the universe that our bodies interact with is one continuous entity. The definition of our outside world does not start from our skins outwards but from our internal organs outwards.

The pertinent question to ask now is where the external world starts and our internal world ends. A property of this demarcation would be the boundary that demarcates the place where our experiences are played with the place that sends sensations and stimulus for creating the experiences.

All our experiences are created and played in our minds. Hence, the boundary that we are thinking off will be between our minds and our bodies. Thus, our minds are a separate entity which hosts our world of experiences while the rest of our bodies and objects outside it forms a separate group.

It is quite heretical to think that there is no difference between our bodies and the objects in the external world. One obvious objection would be that our experience universe takes actions to preserve our bodies but not of external objects. How is it then that we don’t do anything to preserve our nails or hair. To the contrary we spend a lot of time getting our hair trimmed and our nails cut. We happily do the above activities because we don’t get any bad experience in letting go of unwanted body parts. Try doing that with some other part of the body and the associated pain will not allow us to do so. Our experience universe does not always take actions to preserve our bodies, in fact, many a times our experience universe takes actions contrary to preserving our bodies. Think of the scenario wherein a person has developed a tumour in his body which will be fatal. The person’s experience universe fights tooth and nail with the doctor to avoid surgery that will cure the disease. The fear of pain associated with surgery is so intense that as part of the medical procedure, one must be anaesthetised before the life saving surgery can be performed. In this example our experience universe was trying to avoid the bad experience of pain at the cost of our lives !

Our bodies move away from pain whether created internally or externally. The process of moving away from the pain producing experience may differ, taking us to a doctor for an internal injury or simply moving away from a path of a moving stone thrown at us. Our experience universe is only interested in avoiding the bad experience of pain.

Also, if we think deeper then we will realise that it is quite appropriate to think this way. The entities that create the external objects (like molecules, atoms, subatomic particles and so on) also creates our own bodies. They are subjected to the same laws of nature and behave the same way as any other material object in the universe. It is the mind, however, that is a strange place. It is here where the dance of experience is played out.

To conclude, from the point of view of our world of experiences, our bodies, through appearing to be a part of us (and often the only thing that we think as us) are a part of the external universe.