more from this thinker
|
more from this text
Single Idea 3400
[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
]
Full Idea
If you are no larger than a point, how are you joined to the whole body, which is so large? …and there can be no intermingling between things unless the parts of them can be intermingled.
Gist of Idea
Things must have parts to intermingle
Source
Pierre Gassendi (Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) [1641]), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.131
Book Ref
Kim,Jaegwon: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Westview 1998], p.131
A Reaction
As Descartes says that mind is distinct from body because it is non-spatial, it doesn't seem quite right to describe it as a 'point', but the second half is a real problem. Being non-spatial is a real impediment to intermingling with spatial objects.
The
18 ideas
with the same theme
[mind and matter mutually affect one another]:
|
24039
|
All the emotions seem to involve the body, simultaneously with the feeling
[Aristotle]
|
|
24056
|
The soul (or parts of it) is not separable from the body
[Aristotle]
|
|
5695
|
Only bodies can touch one another
[Lucretius]
|
|
6683
|
The contact of spirit and body is utterly amazing, and incomprehensible
[Augustine]
|
|
3400
|
Things must have parts to intermingle
[Gassendi]
|
|
3616
|
The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations
[Descartes]
|
|
6153
|
Interaction between mental and physical seems to violate the principle of conservation of energy
[Rowlands on Descartes]
|
|
3654
|
The pineal gland links soul to body, and unites the two symmetrical sides of the body
[Descartes, by PG]
|
|
6553
|
Descartes discussed the interaction problem, and compared it with gravity
[Descartes, by Lycan]
|
|
3469
|
Mind and brain don't interact if they are the same
[Searle]
|
|
3409
|
Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete
[Kim]
|
|
2446
|
Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle
[Fodor]
|
|
2445
|
Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again
[Fodor]
|
|
9293
|
Body-spirit interaction ought to result in losses and increases of energy in the material world
[Teichmann]
|
|
3911
|
The very concept of a substance denies the possibility of mutual interaction and dependence
[Scruton]
|
|
2409
|
Maybe dualist interaction is possible at the quantum level?
[Chalmers]
|
|
2411
|
Supervenience makes interaction laws possible
[Chalmers]
|
|
4590
|
If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem
[Heil]
|