Forget about the mind-body Problem

Lillian Holloway

In a wooden chair at a wooden table, surrounded by wooden shelves, I face the door and see them walk in. Shoulders, chest, belly and hips, forking into legs, knees, ankles and feet. There’s a desk lamp in the way, and I can’t see their face. 

It’s funny, I think, imagining the face of a real person ten feet away. I can see their clothes, their style, their posture, everything but their eyes, ears, and mouth. The body pauses, surveying the room. It’s odd watching them. I imagine their eyes traveling around, acclimating to the space I had acclimated to an hour ago. The body’s fingers twitch, trying to find the best spot to hunker down and open a book. I can’t see above their shoulders, much less inside their head, but I see their gears turn as the body stalls. Who should I sit next to? Maybe an empty space would be a more realistic goal—better to work alone than next to a stranger. They direct themselves one way, toward an empty desk beneath the window. They hesitate. They pivot. Some new variable inserts itself into their calculations. Too sunny, or maybe the shifting clouds make it too dark. The sun’s warmth is tempting, but perhaps too amenable to napping. 

They decide. They commit. To a spot shaded by towering bookshelves. It’s not that big of a deal. A chair is a chair, and a desk is a desk. They’re all wooden anyway. To change the mind again

would be frivolous. Here to work, not to play, never to play (this is the Oxford Philosophy and Theology Library, you see). These headless folk are silly. 

For a moment it feels wrong to see their body without seeing them, without seeing the face that stares back when they look in the mirror. I imagine they’d smile or nod hello if our eyes had met. I imagine they’d have crow’s feet. I’m sure that in their initial survey of the reading room their eyes passed over my hunched back and open book. I saw when they weren’t aware they were being seen—not a reciprocal relationship. But the desk lamp is in the way. Does seeing someone require looking them in the eyes? 

Shoulders, chest, belly, hips, legs, knees, ankles and feet: a body. Making decisions, or at least seeming to: where to sit, what to read? Surveying the room, no swivel of the head or back-and-forth of the eyes in sight. A chicken running around, head cut off, looking for a quiet

spot to stop 

and think 

about its relationship to the egg, about genealogies, dialectics, and other germane things. I smile to myself and go back to my reading.