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Consciousness

A Ridiculously Brief Overview of Consciousness

A five-minute guide to the debate by Rick Lewis.

Modern philosophy of mind began with René Descartes (1596-1650) who argued that we each consist of two different entities: a material body subject to all the laws of physics and an immaterial mind, which isn’t. This theory is therefore known as Cartesian Dualism. He said that the mind was connected with the brain via the pineal gland. But exactly how, to take a very simple example, does my wish to scratch my nose result in my arm being raised and my finger making scratching motions? How can something non-physical – the mind – have a causal effect on something physical? Over the next few centuries, various modified versions of Dualism tried to address this problem. According to epiphenomenalism, for instance, the interaction was only one way: the brain affected the mind, but the mind had no effect on the brain.

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