Title: The Matter of the Mind
Subtitle: Philosophy, Physics, and Music
Subject Classification:  Philosophy, Psychology, Science  
BIC Classification: HP, JM, PD
BISAC Classification: PHI015000, PSY008000, SCI055000
Binding: Hardback, Paperback, eBook
Publication date: 11 Mar 2025
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-80441-836-9
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-80441-837-6
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-80441-838-3

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Description

"The Matter of the Mind" focuses on the mind-body problem. Such a problem should be viewed not as a philosophical or metaphysical problem, but as a cognitive one. What needs to be accounted for is a representation of how the interaction of the mind and brain can become more intelligible.

The author proposes that science can provide such a representation, especially the contemporary physics of string theory. String theory offers a new conception of matter, allowing a passage of matter to the mind without the difficulties imposed by a traditional/common sense corpuscular conception of material objects. In other words, string theory will enable us to conceive of a continuum between matter and the mind. There is no discontinuity between them once we abandon the visual perception-based description of matter, depicting it as solidity, impenetrability, and extension in space.

Biography

Author(s):  Professor John Teixeira is a full professor at the Federal University of São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil.

Reviews

"John Teixeira’s The Matter of the Mind: Philosophy, Physics, and Music is best read as a carefully curated exhibition: philosophy provides the curatorial argument, contemporary physics supplies a new palette, and music works like a change of lighting that makes old contours visible again. The wager is that the mind–brain problem persists not only because we lack data, but because our inherited “picture of matter” is stylistically outdated; hence the turn to a “sonic model,” where vibrating strings can be imagined (heuristically) as producing harmonics that help us re-approach qualia without capitulating to reductionism. Its contemporary relevance lies in the book’s insistence on reconciling what Teixeira calls the “manifested image” (the world as it appears) with the “scientific image” (the world as theorized), a task that, in the current climate of machine intelligence and renewed metaphysical impatience, is no longer optional. “Mild physicalism” names this reconciliation: mind and matter may share the “stuff” of vibration, yet they are not thereby identical or mutually reducible; the point is to restore the painting without repainting it into a different genre. In that sense, Teixeira’s gesture recalls Kandinsky’s attempt to translate music’s invisible structures into the visible discipline of the canvas, and I truly believe that his goal was soundly achieved. A must-read for everyone interested in the latest progress on the existence of a minded matter in a mindless universe."
- Steven S. Gouveia (MLAG, Institute of Philosophy, University of Porto | Honorary Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Andrés Bello)