Descartes In Reverse

After Descartes, philosophy adapted itself to Isaac Newton's mechanical universe, and the mind-body duality became what is referred to as "the ghost in the machine" with the body being the machine subject to physical laws and the mind a spirit entrapped within this meat robot.

These days, the reverse is more acceptable. The mind is the machine, a computer run by neurons and protein, constantly processing the data collected by the animate entity it finds itself embedded in. The body is like a ghost to the computer, as foreign and hard to understand as uranium. Does the mind ever understand having multiple sclerosis or cancer of the colon or any of the other fleshy horrors that attack without remorse? Does the mind understand death, or passion, or even the difference between Self and Others? Or am I an Other after all, outside the binary logic of the machine sending Tweets about a life story I hardly recognize?

Does Art matter? What does Art reveal about ghosts and machines? Why do so many artists choose suicide as their final expression? The point I make: there's a connection. The relation of the Self to the outer world, to Others, carries with it the potential to change the biochemical neurological structure of the body. A crack addict's brain chemistry is changed by the drug AND by the behavior. A smoker's body is changed by smoking. Does despair change the body? Of course it does. DFW had lost over sixty pounds of body weight before he hung himself.

It seems like understanding more about ghosts and machines is a desirable goal for Art.