The question of the relation between mind and matter has been a long-standing problem for philosophy and science. Philosophy has offered a number of positions defining the nature of this relation consisting of various forms of dualism and monism or idealism and physicalism. However, these approaches do not adequately address the question of exactly how separate substances interact or how a single reality differentiates into seemingly distinct realms. Alternatively, many books have been written from the perspective of neuroscience explaining the structures and activities of the perceptual and nervous systems associated with various conscious experiences, yet all they really provide are correlations between the two. They do not tell us how or why physiological activity gives rise to subjective experience and its specific qualities. A third approach comes from the literature of the spiritual, which alludes to the possibility of a mystical union of subject and object, but such states are seemingly inaccessible to rational articulation.
Consciousness and Being focuses on the unresolved questions at the heart of the mind-body problem: How and why does consciousness exist? How does subjective experience take on its specific appearance and qualities? What is the common ground of mind and matter such that they are capable of relation and unification? In addition, it argues that the desire to bridge the separation between subject and object is not merely an esoteric problem of interest to philosophers, but is in reality the issue that drives all forms of human desire and the development and activity of the universe. Topics include: