Mind and the Soul Conflict

The wonder of the human mind led me to the research on Psychology. I started with the term ”psycho” itself. I always knew psychology as the ”study of the mind” until I found this interesting twist. I was quite surprised to read what the term “ psychology” actually means. “Psycho” means “soul” in Latin and not the mind. So in a way, it was the study of the soul initially, and over the years the meaning got altered. The term psychology changed to the study of the mind from soul. The aim of this study was to find reasons behind human beings acting in a certain way. Initially when the existence of the ”mind” wasn’t known to people, they purely thought that the soul is responsible for the personality of a human. Over the years, soul was associated with only the spiritual world, whereas the mind looked like more biological and real. People tend to explain a man’s personality and behaviour with the mind and not the soul. This was because the mind and its exploits could be explained by medical science. On the other hand, the soul and its exploits were too difficult to explain in black and white theories. No one knew the source of souls and many don’t even believe in its existence.

Behaviourist John Watson concluded -

“No one has ever touched a soul, or seen one in a test tube, or has in any way come into relationship with it as he has with the other objects of his daily experience ....

Why don't we make what we can observe the real field of psychology? Let us limit ourselves to things that can be observed, and formulate laws concerning only those things. Now what can we observe? We can observe behavior - what the organism does or says. And let us point out at once: that saying is doing - that is, behaving. . “

The mind was still in a way trapped in researches and thesis by men, but the soul still remains elusive. It belongs to an unknown and mysterious world!!!

Can death be fought?

I used to have a guitar teacher two years back. He discontinued teaching me as he had to move to London. He is doing a PHD on Robotics out there.Yesterday, he told me how he got interested into Robotics. I was quite taken aback to know what made him delve into Robotics. It was death!!!

As a child, when his grandparents or someone in the family died, he hated the feeling. (Most of us do hate it when death claims our loved ones). He wanted to have human beings forever beside him. And that gave his young mind an idea- he wondered can't there be an artificial heart, an artificial mind in the human body that would make them live longer or forever? Human body is perishable, but machines in their body would last longer,much longer. This thought led onto the interest in Robots - a body made of all artificial components. That was the connection between Robotics and death in his life.

That was an innocent child’s mind trying to find ways to fight death- but is fighting death possible? No. Death cannot be fought with even the most powerful Technology. But,the good news is that death is not the end. Loved ones whom we lose are somewhere experiencing life after death. What? Where? and how are they? Thats the mystery.