The Meaning of The Mind and Soul

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Death and immortality

Since the times of Plato and before, humans have pondered the existence of a soul and the afterlife. I am going to present my argument for the existence of a soul and the potential for surviving one's physical death. For the purpose of my argument I will define that the meaning of the mind and soul are one and the same. The two main accepted views of the human condition are that of the physicalist and that of the dualist. The physicalist views the human condition in a purely physical state. That is to say that the human mind and consciousness is confined to the human body, and thus when the body dies so does the mind. The dualist view holds that the human condition is made up of two parts. The first part being the physical body and the second the soul or the non-physical mind. I present my argument in this form; (1) Physical objects such as the human body have to obey physical laws; (2) Non-physical objects such as the human mind/soul do not have to obey physical laws; (3) Humans present both physical and non-physical properties; (4) Therefore the mind/soul does not die with the physical body.

To begin my argument I will define my concept of the human soul and the physical body which is akin to that of Descartes. Descartes made the distinction that the mind and the body are two separate things. The mind being a thinking non-extended thing and the body being a non-thinking extended thing. In which he concludes that the mind can exist without the body (Skirry). The words, mind, and soul in this case are interchangeable and demonstrate two distinct parts that make up an individual person.

Now to explain the interactions of the mind and the body. Since the mind and the body make up a person as a whole, it is...

... middle of paper ...

.... It is fair to say that the mind does not have to obey the physical laws that influence the death of our bodies, and the mind can potentially live on in its non-physical form separate from space and time. However, I cannot argue as to what form our minds or soul will take, and what the nature of that existence will be. It would be very difficult to define such an existence through pure a priori reasoning alone, however we cannot deny the validity of the duality of our existence nor deny that we do indeed have a soul.

Bibliography:

Calef, Scott. 'Dualism And Mind'. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005): n. pag. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

Robinson, Howard. 'Dualism'. Plato.stanford.edu. N. p., 2003. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.

Skirry, Justin. 'Descartes, Rene: Mind-Body Distinction'. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006): n. pag. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.

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