No matter how many times you try to see it, only by changing the conditions does something flip in your brain to say, “These blocks are the same color.” A famous optical illusion like this one makes it pretty clear that something is off. Illusions are the easiest (and maybe the least depressing) way to see that our brains make mistakes. And this meat makes mistakes about reality all the time. The dark truth Rust Cohle is alluding to is this: Who you are is entirely dependent on the physical brain, “this meat,” as Cohle puts it. It may be a philosophical one, but Cohle has something to say about that too. Dualism is no longer a scientifically tenable position. We’ve seen it enough times to know that our naïve dualism lives up to the designation. In theory, a surgeon could remove or alter a part of your brain and you would become an entirely different person (the case of Phineas Gage being the classic example). More succinctly, “The mind is what the brain does.” If you-the you that harbors your personality, your will, your conscious thought-were truly separate from the physical brain, then brain damage or surgery could never change who you were. With support from countless experiments and a number of intersecting fields, science is now certain mind and brain are one. Ultimately, our intuitive sense of self is like our pre-programmed intuitive sense of physics-useful in most situations, but not very accurate when we ask bigger questions. We are born (and cultured) with a sense of self located somewhere behind the eyes, in between the temples. When we knew nothing of where the mind sprang from, it was understandable to think ourselves something of a puppet master. But these feelings are still considered naïve because of what we now know about the brain. We feel as though we drive our bodies like a vessel our minds inhabit. When you trip on the sidewalk you might say your legs gave out, but it wasn’t your fault. “You” haven’t aged but your body looks older. When we look in the mirror, for example, we instinctively comment on our physical appearance separate from the mind. This is referred to as “naïve dualism.” The people who think the body and mind are separate-more specifically the physical brain and the mind-are not naïve or stupid themselves, so to speak, but rather we are born thinking this way without consideration. Is the mind separate from the body? Who is in control? What makes the mind? Some research suggests that fully understanding consciousness involves biting the bullet that Cohle loads in the gun: our sense of self is programmed, a construct, an illusion.Īsk most people if mind and body are one and they will say no. Flagg is also able to create pain in both the body and mind.When Cohle says that we are “programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody,” he’s not just trying to ruin partner Marty Hart’s “silent reflection periods,” he is bringing up some of the biggest questions in the scientific exploration of human consciousness. He does this with Nadine, but goes too far and she ends up dead. All throughout The Stand, he is able to sense evil in people, read their minds, and draw out the darkness in them. Flagg's actions point to the fact that although he is evil and has several supernatural powers at his disposal, he's not infallible and still makes human mistakes. This happens in Chapter 65, but by Chapter 67, Flagg kills Nadine in a fit of rage. Later, Nadine goes to Flagg and he impregnates her, but she goes insane from the experience. Related: The Stand: How Stephen King's Writers Block Created A Major Plot Twist At this point, he has chosen Nadine to be the mother of his child. In Chapter 57, he is able to psychically enter Nadine to partially control her. While Mother Abigail's crew begins to build a new town and society, Randall Flagg is secretly in contact with two people there who belong to him rather than Abigail.
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