Materialism left out the mind-body connection. Mind isn’t material. Yet our thoughts cause our bodies to move, something we take for granted the minute we get out of bed in the morning but which stands as a great mystery. When you break the body down into organs, tissues, and cells, you can’t find the slightest trace of a thought, and yet the mind must be related to the body. How? Reductionism left out the holistic nature of the body. Trillions of cells cooperate to sustain one another, acting to preserve overall balance and health. Up to a quadrillion neural connections in the brain generate a microscopic electrical storm, and yet the result is organized thought, not a jumble of static. As skilled as medical science is at dissecting body and brain, it has little to say about the experience of life as a whole, yet that experience impinges directly on who gets sick and who stays well.
Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D.
Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit
Vice chair of neurology
Massachusetts General Hospital.
Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy
Professor of Neurology
Harvard Medical School.