Looking for the Logos of Life VII: Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis Stevenson. I listened to the wonderful Librivox recording.

At first glance, a story set in nineteenth-century London may seem far afield for a Nearctic traveller. There are two reasons, however, to consider it. First, Stevenson is one of the most accomplished writers I know, whose Travels with a Donkey I intend to post about someday, and whose Treasure Island was THE adventure tale of my childhood. Second there is this passage in the story (which otherwise is too familiar to summarize) about the relation between the lives of our souls and bodies, and this relevant to a search for the logos of life:

“I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man’s shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my discoveries were incomplete. Enough then, that I not only recognized my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul.”

So here we have a dramatic statement of an old thesis about the mind vs body question, which has never ceased to captivate natural philosophers and others. Two very challenging recent papers that seek the logos of conscious, self- directed life through mathematical argument are

Hoffman, D. D., & Prakash, C. (2014). Objects of consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 577. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577

Conway, John; Simon Kochen (2006). “The Free Will Theorem”. Foundations of Physics. 36 (10): 1441. arXiv:quant-ph/0604079Freely accessible. Bibcode:2006FoPh…36.1441C. doi:10.1007/s10701-006-9068-6.

At this point all I can say is that I hope someday to get some idea what these authors are talking about. Will the result be enlightening, or could they simply have found new pathways into madness like poor Dr. Jeckyll?