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There is a reasoning soul in this machine
The idea that the mind and body are separate and different dates back to Plato and the ancient Greeks,but it was the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes who first described in detail the mind-body relationship.Descartes wrote De Homine (“Man”), his first philosophical book, in 1633, in which he describes the dualism of mind and body: the non-material mind, or “soul”, Descartes says, is seated in the brain’s pineal(松果体的) gland doing the thinking, while the body is like a machine that operates by “animal spirits”, or fluids, flowing through the nervous system to cause movement.
This idea had been popularized in the 2nd century by Galen, who attached it to his theory of the humours(体液);but Descartes was the first to describe it in detail, and to emphasize the separation of mind and body.In a letter to the French philosopher Marin Mersenne, Descartes explains that the pineal gland is the “seat of thought”,and so must be the home of the soul, “because the one cannot be separated from the other”.
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This was important, because otherwise the soul would not be connected to any solid part of the body, he said, but only to the psychic spirits. Descartes imagined the mind and body interacting through an awareness of the animal spirits that were said to flow through the body.The mind, or soul, residing in the pineal gland, located deep within the brain, was thought to sometimes become aware of the moving spirits, which then caused conscious sensation. In this way, the body could affect the mind.Likewise, the mind could affect the body by causing an outflow of animal spirits to a particular region of the body, initiating action.
"There is a great difference between mind and body."
—René Descartes
Descartes illustrated the pineal gland, a single organ in the brain ideally placed to unite the sights and sounds of the two eyes and the two ears into one impression
An analogy for the mind
Taking his inspiration from the French formal gardens of Versailles, with their hydraulic systems that supply water to the gardens and their elaborate fountains, Descartes describes the spirits of the body operating the nerves and muscles like the force of water, and “by this means to cause motion in all the parts”.The fountains were controlled by a fountaineer(喷泉制造者), and here Descartes found an analogy for the mind.
He explained: “There is a reasoning soul in this machine;it has its principal site in the brain, where it is like the fountaineer who must be at the reservoir, whither(无论到哪里) all the pipes of the machine are extended, when he wishes to start, stop, or in some way alter their actions.”While philosophers still argue as to whether the mind and brain are somehow different entities, most psychologists equate the mind with the workings of the brain.
However, in practical terms, the distinction between mental and physical health is a complex one:the two being closely linked when mental stress is said to cause physical illness, or when chemical imbalances affect the brain.
MORE TO KNOW…
APPROACH
Mind/body dualism
BEFORE
4th century BCE Greek philosopher Plato claims that the body is from the material world, but the soul, or mind, is from the immortal world of ideas.
4th century BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle says that the soul and body are inseparable: the soul is the actuality of the body.
AFTER
1710 In A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley claims that the body is merely the perception of the mind.
1904 In Does Consciousness Exist? William James asserts that consciousness is not a separate entity but a function of particular experiences.
RENÉ DESCARTES
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René Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now called Descartes), France.He contracted tuberculosis from his mother, who died a few days after he was born, and remained weak for the rest of his life.
From the age of eight, he was educated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, Anjou, where he began the habit of spending each morning in bed, due to his poor health, doing “systematic meditation” – about philosophy, science, and mathematics.
From 1612 to 1628, he contemplated, travelled, and wrote.In 1649, he was invited to teach Queen Christina of Sweden, but her early-morning demands on his time, combined with a harsh climate, worsened his health; he died on 11 February 1650.Officially, the cause of death was pneumonia(肺炎), but some historians believe that he was poisoned to stop the Protestant Christina converting to Catholicism.
Key works
1637 Discourse on the Method
1662 De Homine (written 1633)
1647 The Description of the Human Body
1649 The Passions of the Soul
以下是我写的关于The Psychology Book的其他章节，欢迎各位前来观看 ^ ^
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