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Single Idea 7152

[from 'Writings from Late Notebooks' by Friedrich Nietzsche, in 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind ]

Full Idea

Along the guiding thread of the body. When protoplasm divides ½ + ½ does not = 1, but = 2. Thus the belief in the soul as monad becomes untenable.

Clarification

A 'monad' is Leibniz's idea of an irreducible atom of mind

Gist of Idea

With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[68])

Book Reference

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.71


A Reaction

This is presumably an anticipatory remark about the cutting of the corpus callosum (in the brain), which seems to cut a physical person into two people. Personally I always found the absolute unity of the mind or person implausible.