PHILOSOPHY
be explained and described in terms of matter, and so there is no soul-body relationship, as there is no soul, therefore by-passing the issue of interactionism. The ‘oneness’ of the mind and body can be displayed through the correlation of issues with memory, confusion and dementia, and old age, which can be explained in terms of brain activity and progressive brain damage. This implies that what we experience is related to physical causes, and thus, the mind cannot be a separate non-physical thing, but rather is physical and as a result of brain activity. Overall, I find the idea of Cartesian dualism less convincing than that of monism. There are too many areas of contention with Descartes’ theory, with neuroscience failing many of the premises on which it relies. Whilst many may argue that the mind and soul seem so separate from the physical body, modern science offers logical and sound theories and solutions, which I find more conclusive than the proposed unprovable hypothesis.
the body dies, the neural activity stops and thus the self or soul dies too. Soon Neuroscience will be able to examine the action of an individual neurone, and if it succeeds, it will show that the self is nothing but an illusion caused by brain activity. This clearly disputes Descartes’ proofs; if the soul is just a by-product of neural activity, the mind and body are not separate and radically different. Furthermore, the suggestion that the mind and body interact at the pineal gland is an area of contention. Descartes chose the pineal gland as its function at the time was unknown, whereas modern anatomy has shown that it is associated with melatonin production. Similarly, pin-pointing an area of the brain does not solve the issue of how the two interact. The non-physical cannot, according to physics, interact with the physical, and so the issue remains. Due to this, many hold a monistic approach to the mind-body problem, particularly the monist theory of Physicalism. Physicalism is the philosophical position that everything can
Glossary Pineal Gland A tiny gland in your brain that’s located beneath the back part of the corpus callosum. It’s a part of your endocrine system and secretes the hormone melatonin. Monistic A philosophy is monistic if it postulates unity of the origin of all things as well as unity of substance and essence.
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