Dr. Chirapat Ukachoke
Neurological Center
Phyathai3 Hospital
111 Phetkasem Rd., Pakklongphasrichroen
Phasricharoen, Bangkok, 10160
Thailand
Email: mindtheo@mindtheory.net
About the author
Education:
Bachelor of Science (Medical Science) 1980, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
Doctor of Medicine 1982, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
Certification of Proficiency (Neurology) (The Medical Council of Thailand) 1986
Professional appointments
1986 -1996: Lecturer and neurologist, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand
1996 – 2007: Neurologist, Phyathai 3 Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand
2007 – 2019: Chief of Neurological Center, Phyathai 3 Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand
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Like many other children, when I was a child, I wondered about many things in this world, especially the various physical phenomena around me: Does the universe that I live in have a boundary or is it limitless? If the boundary exists, what is it and what is beyond it; if not, how can the universe go on infinitely? Do we live in time that is composed of successive continuum of time slices and how thin is each time slice? How did the universe begin and what was it like before that; and when the universe ends, what will it be like after that? And many other physical questions. I dreamt to be a scientist to learn more about these questions and find the answers. However, due to various family and social factors, I did not become a scientist but came to be a doctor and finally a neurologist, instead.
That was not a wrong choice because it finally helped me answer the great, non-physical questions that I’ve always had in my mind also since I was a child: What is the mind? What are those phenomenal experiences like visions, sounds, smells, etc. that I have in my mind? Do other people experience them – see them, hear them, smell them, etc. – as I do, or is what they experience in their minds different from mine? Why cannot there be just the mind and mental activities without these phenomenal experiences – why are we not just biological robots, doing intelligent, complex activities without phenomenal experiences? Of what uses are these phenomenal experiences? And many other questions. Above all, however, my career helped me answer the question that had been bothering me since I was a child – the most important question of my life: Why do I exist?
During more than 35 years of my clinical practice, I have seen tens of thousands of neurological and psychiatric patients with various forms of disturbances in sensation, perception, motor function, cognition, behavior, mood, consciousness, etc. I have seen patients ranging from very brilliant to severely demented, from perfectly conscious to delirious to deeply comatose, from physically healthy to at the death’s door, some even passed it temporarily. I have had the chance to treat them with my own hands, some with success but some with failure. During all these times, I have had the opportunities to witness them changing between those clinical states and observe effects of various treatments and interventions on the perception, motor function, cognition, consciousness, etc., and the mind. Bit by bit and year after year, I learned and got clues from these encounters. Finally, all of these experiences have given me the key to the nature of the mind and its related phenomena – qualia, consciousness, and others – and enable me to write this theory.
Dr. Chirapat Ukachoke
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