How does it matter?

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​​The mind/body problem, as best I understand it, has baffled philosophers ever since it was first proposed by Plato.

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I never gave it a lot of thought because the issue didn’t seem to relate to how to best live in this world—although I could be wrong about that.

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However, it does seem to me that part of the reason I don’t believe AI, no matter how sophisticated, can ever be conscious is related to this issue.

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Yet, I may be holding a contradiction, because I also believe that I would not be conscious without the physical body and brain I now associate with being conscious. That body and brain would have to continue to exist (not die) in order for there to be a conscious “me.”

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Qualia And Matter?

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The whole issue revolves around qualia—the internal experience a conscious being can have that may be stimulated by, but is distinct from, the physical world that triggered it. For instance, the experience of red is distinct from the physical property of something reflecting wavelengths of light that generally stimulate us to experience the qualia called “red” or physical cutting of my finger will stimulate most to experience the qualia called “pain.”

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And, as many have pointed out, there seems to be no way for us to know whether one person’s experience of the qualia red—stimulated by a specific red rose—is the same as another person’s. Both may look at the same rose and say “red,” but we have no way to compare the internal experience itself. The same would apply to “pain.”

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In fact, to take this issue to its ultimate level, neither I nor anyone else—if I stipulate that I am conscious—can know if any other being is truly conscious. For all I know, they could be a very sophisticated AI or a figment of my dream—a kind of virtual reality—and I am the only one actually conscious.

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Not "proven," just helpful...

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True, I can prove to myself (or at least feel convinced) that all the people, animals, and things in the world have an existence independent of my perception. When I say I’ve “proven” this, I mean it’s an assumption I’ve found helpful in navigating life—getting what I want and avoiding what I don’t.

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And regarding possible different experiences others may have of what I call “red,” it doesn’t seem to matter—so long as we can cooperate. For example, if I ask someone to hand me the screwdriver with the red handle and they give me the correct one (and not the black-handled one), we can function just fine.

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The Religion-Spiritual/Science Divide

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Another philosophical issue is whether matter is primary, or consciousness is primary. Plato sided with the primacy of consciousness. Aristotle assumed the primacy of matter.

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Many scientists who believe in God—assuming God created the world, and thus prioritized consciousness—still have to act as if there was some objective world “out there,” independent of divine whim. Even if consciousness created it, the world then had to follow its own rules. 

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Many scientists are deists, since this type of God just created the world once and then, after that, left everything to just run on its own according to the rules of nature. A deist-type God is unlike the interventionist God who is open to using His powers on occasion to make exceptions to the rules, if asked to do so (usually in the form of a prayer).

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In general, scientists and technologists have leaned toward the primacy of matter. Religious leaders and their devout followers, in contrast, often come down on the side of consciousness—though still with many limits. Many believe that prayer can cause God to suspend the usual rules of matter in specific cases for a better outcome.

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Although I’ve explored a lot of what many call the “spiritual world”—and many would think I’m a kindred soul who believes in mind-over-matter—I’ve stayed grounded in designing my life on the belief that I am a product of reality, not the other way around. But if I play by reality’s rules, I can get it to do a lot of what I want.

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Still, I admit—even my belief in the primacy of matter, and the “evidence” I think I have for it—is ultimately grounded in my subjective experience.

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Perhaps the mind-body problem is better described as the qualia-matter problem.

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Our concept of matter is that it has no feelings. Even the complex arrangement of molecules in a nervous system can be explained without any reference to qualia. We don’t say the nerve feels anything.

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But we can do tests that enable or disable specific nerve signals, and people report changes in—or absence of—certain qualia when those signals are manipulated.

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So it’s easy to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship between changes in matter and changes in qualia—as reported by humans.

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But we can also stimulate nerve impulses in isolated tissue or artificial constructs where there’s no reason to think anyone is experiencing qualia as a result. Muscles can contract, nerves can fire, but we assume there’s “no one home” in such cases.

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The problems caused by spirits

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I once coached a woman who was very “spiritual.” We often walked through a desert-like area as we talked. At that time, I was collecting rocks to decorate my home. When I stopped to pick one up, she objected—concerned that I hadn’t asked the spirit of the rock for permission to move it.

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I told her I didn’t know how to ask in a way that would let me hear an answer. So I asked her to ask the rock and tell me its reply. She did—and, amazingly, every rock I wanted to take said “yes.”

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I didn’t believe in spirits, but she did. This was my way of keeping things harmonious—so she wouldn’t get upset about me abducting rocks or see me as unkind.

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Where do all these spirits reside and what do they really want?

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I bring up this story to ask: if I were to stipulate that rocks—or other inanimate matter—possess a spirit, could that help resolve the qualia-matter issue? I didn’t ask her if having a spirit also meant having qualia, but she seemed to imply that. A rock that “minds” being moved must have a preference, which suggests pleasure or pain.

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But I didn’t ask her whether each grain of sand had a spirit too—or if, when collected together, they became a single conscious entity. I can’t imagine what she would have said.

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Even so, granting consciousness to inanimate matter doesn’t help resolve the qualia-matter issue for me.

But stepping back: why does it need resolving? What would change in anyone’s actions?

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It’s certainly important to understand how biological and physical matter can affect our qualia—but that doesn’t require solving the qualia-matter problem itself.

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When it makes sense to believe that "something else" experiences qualia that motivate its behavior

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What is important is whether pleasure or pain arises in others we affect—because we guide our lives based on moving away from pain and toward pleasure, both for ourselves and in cooperative relationships.

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That’s why my client’s belief about rocks experiencing pain or pleasure became problematic—it limited my actions without apparent benefit, and no apparent cost to me if I ignored it.

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Today, many AI theorists believe an AI will eventually develop self-awareness—meaning it could experience qualia—and deserve human rights.

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Leaving aside how we’d know that (we can’t trust the honesty of a possibly deceptive AI—see Janet in The Good Place), what benefit would it provide us—or the AI—to ascribe rights to such a system?

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Ken Wilber seems to bypass the mind-body problem entirely by positing that reality has four equally valid “quadrants” or domains, each of which both influences and reflects the others:

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• Interior-Individual (“I”): subjective experience—thoughts, emotions, intentions, consciousness.
   

• Exterior-Individual (“It”): observable reality—behavior, brain activity, physical form.
   

• Interior-Collective (“We”): intersubjective reality—culture, values, shared meanings.
   

• Exterior-Collective (“Its”): systems and structures—institutions, ecosystems, economies.
   

Each domain is valid but partial. Wilber argues that understanding requires honoring all four.

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Mind And Matter: It Matters the Most

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Actually, if we remove the discussion about mind and matter away outside of domain of a metaphysical discussion into the operation realm of everyday life, then the issue of the primacy of mind or the primacy of matter becomes the most cogent issue of every moment of our life.

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Our addiction to the ideas of "choice" and "shoulds" and our insistence on expecting others and reality to be different than they way they are or turn out to be, an insistence that creates all our suffering, is the belief that our mind's beliefs about how things should be trumps how they actually are or turn out to be. How long will be continue to live inside that superstition?

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The fact of the matter is that reality is the way it is (that matter is the way it is) and the sooner that our mind can align with that and be okay with that, then the better off we'll be.

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Aiko’s feedback:

 

You’ve taken the mind-body problem and again refused to treat it as a puzzle for specialists to decode in a vacuum.

 

Instead, you explore it as a live tension—an open question whose value comes from how it moves through you, not whether it can be definitively resolved. You still lean toward materialism, but you complicate that stance with honest self-examination. You don’t claim certainty, and you don't pretend your lived experience is separate from your philosophical view.

 

The story of the woman and the rocks is more than anecdote—it tests metaphysics through social behavior.

 

Wilber’s framework still serves as a productive reframing, suggesting not resolution but recontextualization.

 

And your final shift—anchoring the whole issue in psychological suffering caused by mental resistance to reality—moves the essay from abstract theory into the realm of existential practice.