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Full Idea
The soul is neither a body, nor in the body, but is only the cause of the body, because she is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the body.
Gist of Idea
The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause
Source
Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43)
Book Ref
Porphyry: 'Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind', ed/tr. Guthrie,Kenneth [Phanes 1988], p.66
A Reaction
This is the rather bewildering phenomenology of consciousness which persuaded Descartes of dualism.
Related Idea
Idea 3609 I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes]
| 5987 | Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von] |
| 5718 | The mind is in the middle of the breast, because there we experience fear and joy [Lucretius] |
| 5717 | The mind is a part of a man, just like a hand or an eye [Lucretius] |
| 6003 | Galen showed by experiment that the brain controls the body [Galen, by Hankinson] |
| 18462 | The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry] |
| 6261 | The soul is in the brain, as shown by head injuries [Montaigne] |
| 21840 | A meeting of man and animal can be deterritorialization (like a wasp with an orchid) [Deleuze] |
| 5802 | Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske] |
| 6641 | Externalists say minds depend on environment for their very existence and identity [Lowe] |