Philosophy in the Flesh [The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought]: Our Body and Conceptual Systems

This book is really insightful, but I had some questions in this book. Below is one of my questions about the author's explanation between our body and conceptual systems.

I found an interesting sentence in this book: “Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies” (p. 111). In this book, the author emphasizes the importance of the “body” in our conceptual systems. Regarding this point, the author articulates how our body works for our conceptual systems in the following way. 

Our rational mind (reason) arises from the commonalities of our bodies and brains and the environments we live in. This implies that reason doesn’t transcend our body. Of course, this is a part of his explanations, but if the author’s above explanation is true, our conceptual systems seem to be emanated from our body, and the meaning is embedded in our bodies at first glance. However, I don’t still make sense of the commonalities of these three factors: body, brain, and environment. What are the commonalities between them? Also, the author tries to explain our subjective experience (mind or reason) from objective things (body, brain, and environment), but I suppose this approach seems a categorical mistake between UL and UR quadrant.

The Darts We Throw Ourselves: Reaction Mechanism

In this chapter, the author explains that an inevitable physical or mental discomfort (e.g. when you hit your foot on the corner of a door, you feel a pain and unpleasant.) is the “first dart.” In addition to the first dart, we always add some reactions to the first dart. These reactions are called “second darts.” In my experience, I sometimes added negative emotions or feelings to the first dart, but I think that I can manage the second dart comparatively well. However, I know there are a lot of people who respond negatively to the first dart. So, I was thinking what I could offer a good solution or advice to them: “If my client suffers from the negative second dart, how can I help him or her?” The solution with which I came up is to change his or her response or interpretation to the first dart. I think this is the popular way in terms of cognitive or behavioral therapy, but I suppose that it is a little bit a “quick-fix” solution. In my view, unless we change the response-generating mechanism, we continue to suffer from the second darts forever. I have still some questions about this mechanism. Why do we tend to add suffering to the first dart? Where does the second dart come from in our brain? How do we prevent the second dart from showing up?

Reference

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom