Mind-Body Entanglement: Theory and Therapies (SpringerBriefs in Philosophy)

This book suggests a radical departure in approaching the mind-body problem. Instead of trying to causally relate subjective experience to the functioning of the body, it begins with the notion of the psychosomatic unity of the individual and looks for its conditions of possibility. This text shows that what makes this unity possible is the generalized entanglement relation that connects a person's subjective experience with its body functioning in a specific way.In addition to providing a significant contribution to the long-standing philosophical debate about the nature of the mind-body connection, this change of perspective based on the concept of generalized entanglement allows for exploring a holistic approach to health. It can for example explain the existence of body memory and leads to a better understanding of the genesis and evolution of internal diseases, allowing for the development of mind-body therapies. This volume also provides new insights into mental disorders and sets the theoretical basis of self-healing methods appealing to students, researchers and professionals in the fields. Introduction About the Book Contents Chapter 1: Mind-Body Connection and Causation 1.1 Which Concept of “Causation” Are We Referring To? 1.2 Dualism and Causal Efficacy 1.2.1 Dualism of Substances: Elusive Psychophysical “Interactions” 1.2.2 Non-reductive Physicalism: Logical Inconsistency of Psychophysical Causation 1.3 The Hopeless Attempts to Build a Concept of Mental Causation 1.3.1 Woodward’s Interventionist Account of Causation and Mental Causation 1.3.2 The Counterfactual Account of Causation and Mental Causation 1.4 Reductionist Physicalism Chapter 2: Exploring Neutral Monism Philosophy 2.1 An Enlightening Illustration of Neutral Monism 2.2 Spinoza’s Psychophysical Parallelism 2.3 Neutral Monism and Individual Experience 2.4 Jung and Pauli: Unus Mundus and Archetypes 2.5 Quantum-Like Neutral Monism Philosophy 2.5.1 Bohm and Hiley: The Implicate Order Theory 2.5.2 Atmanspacher and Primas: Symmetry Breaking and Co-Emergence of the Psychic and Physical Aspects of the Psychophysical Unity 2.5.3 Time Entanglement of Mind and Matter? Chapter 3: Mind-Body Entanglement 3.1 The Psychosomatic Unity of the Individual 3.2 Mind-Body Interdependency: The Case of Emotions 3.3 Specificity of the Psychophysical Correlations 3.4 Mind-Body Entanglement 3.4.1 Which Systemic Approach for Dealing with the Mind-Body Interdependence? 3.4.2 Mind-Body Entanglement, Condition of Possibility of the Psychosomatic Unity Chapter 4: A Quantum-like Representation of the Psychosomatic Unity 4.1 Quantum-Like Representation of the Psychosomatic States 4.1.1 Temporal Evolution of Psychosomatic States 4.2 Complementarity in Quantum Physics and Beyond 4.2.1 Complementarity of Generalized Observables 4.2.2 Complementary Emotional Observables 4.2.3 Complementary Physiological Observables 4.3 Entanglement in Quantum Physics and Beyond 4.3.1 Generalized Entanglement 4.4 An Experimental Test of Mind-Body Entanglement 4.4.1 Conclusion of this Meta-Analysis Covering 168 Subjects and Discussion Chapter 5: Mind-Body Entanglement and Healing 5.1 From Biomedicine to the Holistic Approach to Illness 5.2 Body Memory, Internal Diseases and Complementary Medicines 5.3 Self-Healing Processes: Placebo “Effect”, Biofeedback and Mental Imagery, Meditation 5.3.1 The Placebo “Effect” 5.3.2 Biofeedback and Mental Imagery 5.3.3 Meditation 5.4 Psychiatric Domain 5.4.1 No Somatic Causation of Mental Disorders 5.4.2 The Continuum of Psychosomatic States: Continuity Between “Normality” and “Pathology” and Between Mental Disorders 5.4.3 An Explanatory and Predictive Model of Bipolar Disorder 5.5 Distant Healing 5.5.1 A Few Experimental Studies on Distant Healing Phenomena 5.5.2 How Does Distant Healing Work? 5.5.3 Distant Healing and Generalized Entanglement Chapter 6: Conclusion Correction to: A Quantum-like Representation of the Psychosomatic Unity Appendix 1: About the Mathematical Formalism of Quantum Theory C* Algebra of Observables The Hilbert Space Formalism Composite Systems Appendix 2: Complementarity of Anger and Disgust Appendix 3: Complementarity of Systolic Pressure and Stroke Volume Appendix 4: Joint Measurement of Emotional and Cardiovascular Observables Appendix 5: A Quantum-like Model of Bipolar Disorder Bibliography