Religion says we are spirits, and we come from a creator called God, but science says we come from nature, we come from the universe. On the face of it the scientists look to hold the better hand, it certainly seems to be that we are material beings; and I have no doubt that the mind and the body are connected; but I've yet to hear a scientist explain where the universe came from. Saying it came from a big bang doesn't cut the mustard any more than saying we were formed out of the clay. Sure enough, the scientists they can prove that the universe started with a big bang, but they also say that nothing can come out of nothing, as such, in my mind, the big bang must have come from some thing; which forces the question: Was there a creator of the big bang?

We are in mysterious circumstances to say the least!

Having a mind, and then actually being able to use it to our own advantage is the greatest mystery of them all.

There's two main philosophies in regard to the human mind.

Dualism is the philosophy that the mind is something entirely different than, and even superior to, the physical universe. The belief that the mind is spiritual and in a different realm than the physical allows a belief that consciousness continue's on after the death of the physical body. It is the belief that the mind inhabits a body, but the consciousness mind lives on when the body dies. It is the belief that the mind is spirit and immortal.

The other side of the argument is materialism and it says the mind comes from the brain, and many on this side of the argument even try to ignore the exhistence of consciousness, but by doing so they fail to come to grips with the the sense of awareness we all feel.

In his book "Mind", John R Searle writes: "One of the wierd features of recent intelectual life was the idea that consciousness_ in the literal sense of qualitative, subjective states and processes_was not important, that somehow it did not matter. One reason this is so preposterous is that consciousness is itself the condition of having importance. Only to a conscious being can there be any such thing as importance."

John R. Searle rejects Dualism on the grounds that it doesn't fit in with what we know about the universe, and he offers us this philosophy: "The general character of the relation of consciousness to the brain, and thus the general solution of the mind-body problem is not hard to state: consciousness is caused by microlevel processes in the brain and realized in the brain as higher-level or system or system feature. But the complexity of the structure itself, and the precise nature of the brain processes involved remains unanalyzed by this characterization."

He goes on to say: "We are tempted to trivialize consciousness by thinking of it as just one aspect of our lives; and of course, biologically speaking it is just one aspect, but as far as our actual life experiences are concerened, consciousness is the very essence of our meaningful existence. If Descartes had not already destroyed the meaning of the sentence we could say "the essence of the mind is consciousness."

Descartes wrote: Cogito, ergo sum: " I think therefore I am."
In his famous method of systematic doubt Descartes resolved to: "reject as if absolutely false anything as to which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if I should not be left at the end believing something that was absolutely indubitable."

If I use Descartes method of systematic doubt I have doubts about the my mind coming 'completely' from the brain. I can see that parts of my mind are brain caused, but the philosophy flounders when it comes to explaining consciousness. I have my doubts about dualism too. I can see where consciousness could very well be from a spiritual realm, but it looks like a lot of our mind comes from the brain. As such I have doubts about both philosophies, and if I use Descartes method of systematic doubt then both the Dualistic and the Materialistic argument must be thrown out. However, like Descartes, I have no doubt in Cogito ergo sum.

The world is constantly changing. Viewpoints change, as such opinions change, and then minds change. The fact that we can change our mind gives us a sense of free will. That we have psycological free will, there can be no doubt, and this goes against determinism where one event has be caused by another.

Our psycological free will is limited to the law of availability, but there is no doubt that when I decide to type the letter A on this keyboard I know that it isn't because a long line of previous causes led up to my action. I typed the letter A because I decided to do it, and it had nothing to do with determinism.

Where the mind comes from is still a mystery, or so it seems, and the working of it is an even bigger mystery. Our conscious perception of the "World" changes all the time. We've been proved wrong by our own minds so many times that we would rather not think about it. The world is a mystery filled with illusion.

Only the physical can take part in the physical law of cause and effect, but the mind does, after all, direct the hand to pick up a pint of Guinness. As such the conscious mind must be, some how, a part of the physical world that is somehow created by the brain. The fact that we percieve our minds to be seperate from nature is maybe just another example of our delusion in a world full of illusion.

The answer to it all may be in the quantum level of nature. Maybe, somehow, the quamtum level is alive in a way we will never understand. If we wade through all the levels of illusion in nature, like peeling an onion, we may come to the bottom level, and after peeling it away we may be left with the realization that there's nothing there. Even then, we can still exclaim in wonder: but, I am!

Joseph Campbell said God is in all, and He looks out from every creatures eyes so He can see His creation from all angles. The mystery of life is just God playing hide and seek with Himself.
While we think God is nowhere to be found, He is all around us and in us. The reason why we can't see God is because we are God, or we are as one with God, and our vision only goes outward, not inward. Only our faulty delusion ridden mind can look inward, and what chance is there that our constantly changing mind in an ever changing world shall ever come to an understanding of itself?

Eternity is a long time, and if we are alive "for ever, and ever, amen" as the Lords prayer ends, it would behove us to get lost now and then, and then try to find ourselves. A game might well be needed, otherwise eternity could well be as boring as hell, and what better thing is there to do than to place ourselves in an enigma such as this that is wrapped up with a riddle!
Campbell was not a religious man, and he mainly based his beliefs on his knowledge of mythology, of which he was a world class expert. He told about the myth of the hero's journey. The hero, in the many mythological versions, always tells of dragons, sea monsters, or huge one eyed human deformities etc. The hero tells how he slew them, or how he tricked them into letting him go; but the main thrust of the story is always about great luck, and the motto is: If the Gods are for you then who can stand against you? The hero's story always contains great awe, and much head shaking and jaw dropping wonder, but the hero always returns to tell his tale.

Mythology is what our mind discovers when it tries to look inward. The hero's journey is a metaphor. Mythology is a metaphor. It's, 'as if this happened'. The nearest we can get to explaining the journey into ones mind is to say: It is, as if it is, like this.

As such the mind is a myth. The world is a myth. You and I are myths. And yet, Cogito ergo sum.

Bloody narvelous or what?