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Single Idea 5887
[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
]
Full Idea
In souls there is no mingling of ingredients, nothing of two-fold nature, so it is impossible for the soul to be divided; impossible, therefore, for it to perish either; for perishing is like the separation of parts which were maintained in union.
Gist of Idea
The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish
Source
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxix.71)
Book Ref
Cicero: 'Tusculan Disputations', ed/tr. King,J.E. [Harvard Loeb 1927], p.83
A Reaction
Cicero knows he is pushing his luck in asserting that perishing is a sort of division. Why can't something be there one moment and gone the next? He appears to be in close agreement with Descartes about being a 'thinking thing'.
The
25 ideas
with the same theme
[unified character of the thinking mind]:
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2127
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The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts
[Plato]
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1737
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The soul seems to have an infinity of parts
[Aristotle on Plato]
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24046
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Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts
[Aristotle]
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1717
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If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity
[Aristotle]
|
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24053
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If a soul have parts, what unites them?
[Aristotle]
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1721
|
What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd
[Aristotle]
|
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5145
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The rational and irrational parts of the soul are either truly separate, or merely described that way
[Aristotle]
|
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21387
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The separate elements and capacities of a mind cannot be distinguished
[Lucretius]
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5884
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How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations?
[Cicero]
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5887
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The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish
[Cicero]
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5506
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If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication
[Plotinus]
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2302
|
Faculties of the mind aren't parts, as one mind uses them
[Descartes]
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21805
|
Spinoza held that the mind is just a bundle of ideas
[Spinoza, by Schmid]
|
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5045
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No machine or mere organised matter could have a unified self
[Leibniz]
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1356
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A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees
[Reid]
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24090
|
Our inclinations would not conflict if we were a unity; we imagine unity for our multiplicity
[Nietzsche]
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7152
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With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad
[Nietzsche]
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7130
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Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool
[Nietzsche]
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4536
|
It is a major blunder to think of consciousness as a unity, and hence as an entity, a thing
[Nietzsche]
|
|
7108
|
The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it
[Sartre]
|
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5792
|
Explanation of how we unify our mental stimuli into a single experience is the 'binding problem'
[Searle]
|
|
3480
|
We experience unity at an instant and across time
[Searle]
|
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2957
|
Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing
[Nagel, by Lockwood]
|
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2426
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Why are minds homogeneous and brains fine-grained?
[Chalmers]
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4924
|
A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain
[Edelman/Tononi]
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