An exploration of Cartesian Dualism, the theory that the mind and body exist separately, and how it could influence how you approach fitness.
An exploration of Cartesian Dualism, the theory that the mind and body exist separately, and how it could influence how you approach fitness.
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hi and welcome back to Get Fit Guy, Kevin Don here. In episode 668, last week, I noted that I wasn’t sure how I would get away with framing philosophical ideas as fitness, but I would give it a damn good try, well, here is a damn good try for you. I also wanted to note that, although I have received some emails from the haters about philosophy and critical thought and been labeled a pedant, I have received MORE emails from listeners who appreciate and enjoy that I am trying to create a place where people leave with abilities such as how to think objectively and how to source evidence for their own fitness journeys. So, if you are one of those people that listens each week, gets absolutely furious that I don’t do podcasts that fit in with exactly what you want, then either:
Send me a bunch of money so I can record a podcast each week just for you
OR
Accept that you aren’t the main character in the story of humanity and there are some things you will and won’t like and that’s ok.
So, on to this week’s episode. As the title suggests, things are about to get philosophical. I mean, strictly speaking, every week is actually philosophical because I share knowledge and epistemology, or what we know and how we know it is a branch of philosophy. So is logic and you probably realised by now that I’m a logical thinker. In fact, Mr Spock himself has nothing on my ability to think in black and white. You may also have noticed I have mentioned Star Trek several times over the last 18 months. Big fan.
Cartesian Dualism. What is that? Well y’all have probably heard of the phrase ‘I think, therefore I am’. Well this is most popularly known in the latin ‘cogito, ergo sum’ but was actually first recorded as ‘je pense, donc je suis’ in Rene Descartes 1637 book, Discourse on the Method. Descartes believed that there are two kinds of things: mind and matter. So, there is a difference between what is mental and what is physical. The opposite of Cartesian Ddualism would be Mmonism, where there is only one. I want to take a moment here, as always, since people think I have time each week to cover every possibility like my podcast is some kind of quantum wave function with every possibility in there. It’s not. There are significantly more schools of thought about the ‘mind-body problem’ than purely Ddualism or Mmonism. But for the purposes of this podcast, we will keep it simple.
So, what do you think? Philosophy is all about thinking and asking questions. Do you believe the mind and the body are separate entities? Do you think that we have a soul that will leave our bodies when we die? Then you may be a Ddualist? Or maybe you believe that the mind and the body are one and that we are just a collection of processes and chemical reactions and when those cease to be, we also to be. Maybe you might be a monist or a reductionist, reducing us to bundles of physical processes. Either way, we have the same outcome of a claim for pursuing fitness.
Either: your mind and your body are separate entities, in which case the body is a vessel for containing and transporting the mind during it’s time here on earth. In which case, it is advisable to maintain the body in top condition, as you would for a plane that carries passengers. Or, your mind and body are the same entity, in which case, the survival of the mind depends on you keeping the body running, therefore, again it is advisable to maintain the body in top condition. The only scenario where this would not matter would be if we were spirits floating about with no physical body. This is not the case.
So, why am I bringing up dualism and fitness? Well, if you were cynical, you’d think it was so I could ram some philosophy down your throats. However, that is not the case. It’s because I have trained a lot of people and I have noticed a trend. First of all, I have to let you know that I do not believe in ‘free will’. I am a determinist. I see this as being a deterministic universe. Which could be a 20,000 word podcast, but put simply: If you believe in cause and effect, you would be believing in some kind of determinism. Now, I am here, right now speaking to you and you are wherever you are right now, listening to me because of something all of humanity have in common. The Big Bang. The universe began with a singularity. Now, before I get heat from creationists, this idea is still compatible, because we would still be here now because of God creating the universe. Therefore, the universe is deterministic, since it is the effect of creation.
I hope you are following so far, I know that my mind makes ‘unique’ connections that the more neurotypical among us can’t follow easily. During my experiences as a coach, speaking with trainees, from novices, to Olympians, there is a common thread. They didn’t start to train with the goal of sporting excellence. There was something else. Something deterministic. I know a champion bodybuilder who, now at the pinnacle of aesthetics, actually took it up because at 15 years old he was bullied at school for looking like a ‘fat chipmunk’. I know others who took up CrossFit because it was painful and NOTHING takes away from the pain you feel inside like some pain from the outside. So, it seems to me that in the case of my friend who is a champion bodybuilder, it was determined by bullies. I had another client whose wife no longer found him attractive and said he looked like Santa Claus. He hit the gym hard and lost over 100lbs. So, if we have external reasons somewhere for going to train, this makes fitness deterministic.
It also makes a case for a more Mmonist approach. I have a friend from Canada who is a hockey player and they were going through a bad time at home. So, they started with Crossfit. Makes sense, some physical pain to distract, to use as a coping strategy. But, what happened next was adaptation. They adapted to the demands, so what did they do? Added more. Yup, double sessions. Then it was double sessions and then cold water swimming and then it was double sessions, cold water swimming and then more hockey. Eventually, injury came and there was no more coping strategy and they were forced to confront the issues. It was messy.
I have also seen where some people went absolutely all in on fitness, then the next thing, they were all in on shamans and energy healing. Which was the ultimate in a dualistic approach: train only the body and then stop that and train only the ‘spirit’ or mind.
My idea is that we need both. If we are coming to fitness, not because of free will but because of determinism, then we need to say that, yes, fitness is great because for both Ddualists and Mmonists, looking after the body is critical. But we also need to look backwards to the reason, the cause that means we have a training effect. Do you want to train because you are unhappy with how you looked in photos you saw of yourself at your cousin’s wedding? Did someone pass a remark on your weight or your skinny calves? Did you get back results from a physical at the doctors? Do you feel lonely and the gym or a sport is a good way to build a social network? All of this is deterministic and we should think about doing work on that as well as on our bodies. There is a Japanese manga called ‘Ghost In The Shell’ and I think we can change this phrase up and use it as a maxim for our approach to wellbeing; ‘The Ghost AND The Shell’.
As always, thank you for listening and send any fun emails to me at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at Quick and Dirty Tips Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, the director of podacasts Brannan Getchuss and Davina Tomlin. I’m your host, Kevin Don. If you have a question for me, leave me a voicemail at 510-353-3104 or send me an email.
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