Herb Koplowitz
Abstract: By integrating philosophical rigor with practical examples and personal history and revelation, the author shares how he ended his quest to understand the concepts of life, mind, and soul and resolved the mind-body problem. The article relates the key insight garnered from Elliott Jaques that triggered a new, internally-consistent conceptual framework or paradigm. Founded on a unitary organism model of life, it replaced the mind-body-soul model. The paper is grounded in the premise that our attempts to answer a question (e.g., “How do we think and judge?”) are hindered by accepting an entity (e.g., mind) whose only evidence is that the question exists. The logic of the new conceptual framework is developed through brief, methodical discussions that juxtapose choice and judgement with calculation, Newtonian physics, randomness, and self correction. On that foundation, unitary arguments trace the author’s dissolution of concepts of mind, body, and soul and the spiritual. General implications of this framework are then applied to terminology and to the origin of life, abortion, and trading one duality for another. In relating some personal implications of this framework in daily life, the author makes the case for the value of simplicity in conceptual frameworks and the clarity that can result.
Tags: body, soul, choice, unitary, dualism, Elliott Jaques, judgement, life, mind, mind-body problem, organical, organism, Herb Koplowitz, organismic
