Cartesian Dualism - Separateness of the Mind and the Body - Essay Example

The Mind/body dualism concept states that mind and body are two separate entities and cannot be considered one.... Over the years, after several modifications, modern Catholics believe in inseparability of body, mind and soul, while some protestants say that only the immaterial soul goes to heaven, not the physical body.... Plato's theory of Forms states that since Forms make the world intelligible, hence the mind, or intellect must be a non physical entity....

The physical differentiation of the mind and the body was easily achievable.... The interaction between the mind and the body has been suggested to be supportive in nature.... This makes them isolated and hence, the mind and the body exist as separate entities.... This included the mind and the body as well.... In the nineteenth century, the epiphenomenon was proposed by Hodgson (1870) to further the idea that the mind and the body are inseparable; the mind cannot have a physical significance....

They are the result of a most curious physiological arrangement that has turned the brain into the body's captive audience” (Damasio 34).... The space-time matrix of the Freudian dream clearly asserts that the mind is the reflection of human existence in which the body is the limitation spatial restriction of the human mind and mind can transcend this limitation through his imagination.... Damasio's argument primarily revolves around his proposition that the human being is the integration of body and mind and, therefore, “body and mind” cannot be separated from each other....

We could also interpret this as a statement… out the fundamental nature of existence, one that precludes the possibility of the mind and body being reduced to the same material (the contrary belief is known as monism).... We could also interpret this as a statement about the fundamental nature of existence, one that precludes the possibility of the mind and body being reduced to the same material (the contrary belief is known as monism).... Any theory that attempts to explain the physical world should be relatively compatible with the findings of physics, psychology, and biology (physical world, the mind, and the body, respectively)....

In her subsequent letter, Elizabeth indicates that she is not able to comprehend and understand how the non-extended and immaterial soul moves the body.... Interpreters alludes that Elizabeth concedes Descartes' ideas in some of her last letter, where she admitted the body moves the soul and vice versa.... As Elizabeth writes: On the other hand, reductionist materialists (such as Hobbes) claim that this soul-body union based on cartesian dualism principles of philosophy (Shapiro 516)....

There are various ways through which the interaction of the mind and the body can be studied.... Different forms of dualism exist and these forms either argue that the mind and the body interact together or they argue that both the states are independent of each other.... Fourth form of dualism is double aspectism which states that there is no causal relationship between both the mind and the body, but they exist in one single system and cannot be divided (Hergenhahn, 2009)....

The main question is whether the mind and the body have any connection.... the mind and the body are two distinct attributes that casually interact at given times for the sake of performing bodily activities.... Whether these two have any connections or not is not an issue that many can answer without coming up One of the most important questions asked is whether the mind is part of the body or the body part of the mind.... Agreeably, the mind deals with mental processes that deal with consciousness… the body, on the other hand, deals with the main physical attributes that make up a human being....

The paper "Descartes Theory of the Relation Between the mind and Body" highlights that I disagree with Descartes' theory I think therefore I am.... the mind and body are hence incompatible and clearly distinct from each other.... He argued that when the mind understands it in some ways turns towards itself and inspects one of the ideas, which are within it; but when it imagines it turns towards the body and looks at something in the body, which conforms to an idea understood by the mind and perceived by the senses....