Topics Mind

Question Are "we" our brains controlling a "shell"? Or are our brains more like independent beings, and we ourselves are the shells?

Accepted:
October 19, 2005

Comments

Even the Great Dualist, Descartes, who regarded mind and body as two completely different kinds of substances, did not want to regard the relation between the mind and the body as like that (his analogy) between a captain and a ship. A person, according to Descartes, is a "union" of mind and body, where a "union" is supposed to be something more than just a body and a mind. In what way precisely the "union" is more than a body and a mind, in what way the mind and body are "bound together" in the union, is a question with which Descartes struggled throughout his career, and I don't know that anyone thinks they really understand what he meant or, for that matter, that Descartes really understood what he meant.

Nowadays, dualism isn't very popular, but your question shows that similar questions can arise about the relationship between a brain and a person. It doesn't seem happy to identify a person with his or her brain and then to regard the relation between the brain and the body as like that between a pilot and a ship. Perhaps that shows that, if you're going to identify a person with some physical entity, persons should be identified not with their brains but with their bodies.

Question Are "we" our brains controlling a "shell"? Or are our brains more like independent beings, and we ourselves are the shells? Accepted:October 19, 2005

Question Are "we" our brains controlling a "shell"? Or are our brains more like independent beings, and we ourselves are the shells?

Accepted:
October 19, 2005