The Embryo in Us: A Phenomenological Search for Soul and Consciousness in the Prenatal Body

Abstract: In the last two decades the classical post-Cartesian mind-body dualism (which by many scientist and philosophers is considered to be old-fashioned and overcome by modern monism of materialism) seems to be prevailed by a kind of body-brain dualism propagated by modern neurophysiology and neurophilosophy. The human embryo however seems to challenge this false monism of "We are our brain." The phenomenological approach of the developing human body as a process Cmotion') reveals that mind and consciousness are not imponderable dimensions 'produced' by the body or the brain but that the triune of mind-motion-matter represents the fundamental appearance of the inseparable twofoldness of mind and body as an entity. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the whole body is an act of mind and consciousness, not only the brain. The 'embryo' apparently is not a past phase in human lifespan but still exists in our so-called adult organism as the primary way of being a body with a mind. Body and mind are a polarity which goes far beyond the concept of duality and dualism. We therefore are a consciousness having a body, not a body producing consciousness. The brain may be the organ of coordination and consciousness but not of the soul: our whole body is a psychosomatic reality with levels of consciousness.Keywords: Embryology, Phenomenology, Soul, Consciousness, MorphologyWine got drunk with us, not the other way.The body developed out of us not we from it.We are bees and our body is a honeycomb.We made the body, cell by cell we made it.Rumi (1207 - 1273)Lost BodyIn the last two decades, we have seen a new onslaught of materialistic thinking in biology, psychology, and philosophy. Truly, it could be described as a tsunami. Based upon concepts about the function of our brain according to modern neurophysiology, a new perspective about the human soul and consciousness has been introduced and apparently accepted by the general public. To summarize the gospel of modern brain philosophers: the brain rules the mind. All that we feel, think, do-well, it's just the "brain." Everything that we are able to experience is attributed to the brain and reduced to 'nothing but' the activity of hippocampi, cerebral cortical areas and so on. The post-Cartesian soul, which still was more or less defensible as the imponderable res cogitans dimension in our mind, has been abandoned. Neurophilosophers claim that Cartesian dualism of body and mind is overruled by the evidence of the brain as the definitive physical substrate for our consciousness, our speech, and our mind. Implicitly, however, and without any modesty, a false new dualism is introduced in the form of a body-brain split. The brain is a 'special' organ in the body and there our consciousness occurs and is performed by neuromachinery. The Dutch neuroscientist Swaab (2010) proclaims that the body only serves three purposes: to feed, to move and to reproduce our brains. "We are our brains" is the message. It leaves us with a very private and subjectivist view of reality, because you have to consider that everything you feel or experience as a 'non-body' or imponderable reality in your head or in your body (like the pain in your toe) is merely an "illusion produced by the brain."Lost SoulWhat is the defense against this pure reductionistic materialism? It is: become a phenomenologist! Don't just conform to the view of the scientific onlooker (observer) but take the primary stance that life offers to all of us: be a participant. As a participator, take for true your own sense experience and what you experience in, and by means of, your body. This is the primary reality. The "world of senses" is reality before the Cartesian split of mind and body. A phenomenological approach not only takes as true what your experience is telling you, it also includes the virtual and secondary reality of the "brain facts." Modern neurophilosophers make the philosophical and methodological mistake of assuming that primary reality is only the reality that we observe through our instruments. …