In 1637, René Descartes said, “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). Originally written in French (“Je pense, donc je suis”), it is best known both in Latin form and as representative of “the mind-body problem” or dualism, a concept intrinsic to modern science and philosophy.

In essence, dualism promotes the idea of isolation and separation in the dynamics between thought and matter, between the cerebral and corporal. A striking example of this thinking is found in traditional allopathic medicine, wherein the human mind and body have been treated as separate entities for the past 400 years or so.

The Quantum Human: Dualism’s Demise

Quantum physics and quantum science are increasingly demonstrating that all matter arises from and is connected to an infinite (and likely unified) field of universal energy, which in its myriad forms creates everything in existence — including us. Physicist David Bohm classified this energy as either invisible (“implicate”) or visible (“explicate”).

Humanity represents a miraculous expression of these energies: We are the implicate energy of mind, and the explicate energy of body; there is no separation. Indeed, we appear to be quantum beings! Mind and body are inextricably connected and interactive, an idea reflective of ancient tribal philosophies. Ironically, what they simply accepted intuitively is now being proven by the very science that rejected their thinking as primitive and backward.

The Mind-Body

The implicate energies of mind — consciousness — comprise three interactive strata: the cognitive conscious, the automatic and autonomic subconscious, and the more ethereal superconscious — the spirit or soul. Living can thus be described as a multitudinous exchange of energies between consciousness and its environment. These energy exchanges create internal energies we call thought. Thoughts in turn create and interact with energies we call feelings, triggering the sensation of energies we call emotions.

The explicate energies of body provide the mind both a residence and vehicle through which to experience the energy exchanges of living. The body conducts incoming energies through our sensory apparatus to our internal processor, the brain. In turn, the mind, via the brain, uses these inputs to generate somatic sensations and conditions within the body, which then feed into the loop of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. This interconnection and communication defines a human being. The mind is the nexus, generating and integrating thoughts, feelings, and emotions with somatic sensations and perceptions, producing what we perceive as reality.

Oops!

While that’s how it all apparently works, it’s not how it all necessarily feels. Duality still holds sway; for example, most people would describe pain as distinct and separate from thoughts and emotions. Yet studies show that 70 to 80 percent of our perception of pain is emotionally generated.