Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

perceive the relations between things in our experience. Consciousness only emerges from this relation. What emerges from the mind is a construction of the world — map-making. The two types of emergence — relation and construction — are partly aligned but also very different. Thus consciousness is embodied — somatic rather than cerebral. Construction — map-making — on the other hand is cerebral and rational.

So, with this notion of transcendence, there is the most radical split into the mysterian realm. Not only that but there is the possibility that our ‘true selves’ — our essence — may actually live in that mysterian realm! Put simply, perhaps there is a soul, over and above our minds and bodies. This is the subject of our next chapter.

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