Dualism: The Mind And The Mind

Dualism is the idea that there are two kinds of reality. There is material or physical and there is immaterial or spiritual categories that are distinct and separate from one another. The idea of Dualism can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, but was precisely defined by Rene Descartes in the 17th century. Descartes proposed that there was in fact a mind that had conscious thoughts and awareness and that there was the physical body that one could see. Descartes’ thoughts and ideas proposed that the ideas, consciousness, and self- awareness that make up the mind, are in fact different from the brain. Other theories that were proposed at this time include materialism, and reductive physicalism. The ideas of dualism, that the mind and the brain (the body) are two separate entities are the most logical in addressing the issues of interaction, evolution and the idea of multiple minds.

Dualism, the idea that the mind and the body are two different things, can be broken down into two distinct categories. A substance dualist will argue that the body is a physical object that has physical properties and that the mind is a mental substance that contains mental properties that are entirely separate from physical properties. One example that a philosophical analyst describes is that of pain. He states that when one

Primary qualities are those such as weight, shape, size, and motion. Secondary qualities are colors, tastes, sounds, smells. Frank Jackson explained that the very existence of the secondary qualities favors the idea of dualism. He states that science allows us to acknowledge and understand that there is no color in physical or material things. The color that we see is “sense-data” that is being collected. The very interpreted of things like color or smell shows that there are thoughts and ideas that cannot be defended by the material explanations that science can give