ABSTRACT
Reading Dr Britton’s title of his chapter, “Mind and matter”, and thinking about his doubts about the usefulness of polarizing mind and body, a fragment of a poem written by Marion Milner (2001) a psychoanalyst and an artist, came to my mind: A language game “What is mind? No matter” “What is matter? Never mind.” Who said this? “Mind the gap!” Shouts the mechanical voice at the Embankment tube station. “Mind the gap” I do, I did, I never have fallen between the platform and the train. I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Or does it? … I do mind the gap between the rich and the poor. And I do mind the gap between what I can dream of for the earth And what we are doing to it. Destroying the living matter on which we depend for life— like the Amazon Forests And I mind that I did not think It mattered that I did not mind When we came to the End of the matter. So that there were No more gaps To mind. Body and Mind, two sides of the same coin you said? I minded that I did not mind That the matter did not matter any more But I do know that it is Out of the gaps That new things grow. [Steiner & Johns, 2001]
