The Story and the Dilemma

Abstract

This section tells the story of my mother's stroke and what I have learnt from it about mind, body, consciousness, and the self, arguably the most cross-disciplinary topic of all. What gives us our sense of personal identity – our body? Our mind? Their union? And what if one of them is diminished – say, as a result of an accident; what then, do we stop being ourselves? This opening chapter sets the scene for the debate that follows, on this most fascinating mystery of all – our own self and consciousness. We question the still dominant dualist approach of the mind, seeking a more holistic view of the self; to this end, we believe that adding relevant experiential aspects will help complement the theory. Thus, an interdisciplinary, trans-theoretical account is needed in this endeavour. In this chapter, we introduce the dilemma and draw the main lines of argumentation related to it. In Chapter 2, we discuss the first experiential (in other words, the clinical) aspects of the mind, and neuroscientists' view of it, followed – in Chapter 3, by social aspects and psychologists' contributions to the subject. Chapter 4 will add more idiosyncratic aspects to the debate, such as the spiritual profile of a person, more often discussed in philosophy, religion, and art.