The Mind and the Body

From the very fact that I doubted the truth of other things, it most clearly and distinctly followed that I was. On the other hand if I ceased to think, even though everything else I had ever imagined had been in reality existent, I could have had no reason to think that I existed. I concluded therefore that I was a substance, whose essence consists wholly in thinking, and which to exist has no need of any place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that I, that is, the mind which I am, is absolutely distinct from the body ... .
- Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637)

Is the mind inside the brain?

It is given to us all to doubt, Descartes said. And we may doubt everything-the world around us which might all be a dream: our bodies, which might be an illusion; and so on. But there is one thing which we cannot doubt, and that is that while we doubt, we must exist. "Cogito, ergo sum," Descartes said: I think, therefore I am. But this "I," this "self," this "thinking thing," is just a mind, separated in thought from its body. So this mind is a substance which was one attribute, thought. Descartes then deduces the existence of God and the reliability of "clear and distinct ideas," and then our bodies, and then the world of things around us. But he is left with a serious problem. He has concluded that there are two distinct substances. Mind and Body (and so he is called a dualist). Mind is characterized by thought, body by extension. Mind has no size or shape or location in space, and body is physical and exists purely in space and time. Mind is mental-it is composed of thoughts, beliefs, hopes, dreams, decisions, etc. . Body is physical-it has s-ize, shape, weight, location, color, and so on. The problem is, how do minds- and bodies relate to each other? They must, for when I decide to raise my hand, up it goes. So mental decisions can cause physical movement. And when a knife cuts my hand, a purely physical event, I feel pain-which is mental (if I were unconscious I wouldn't feel it). So mind and body interact. But if one is mental and the other is physical, how can they connect? Is the connection mental? If so, how does it connect with the body? Or, if it is physical, how does it hook up with the mind?

Descartes offered a completely unsatisfactory answer: he said the interaction occurred in the brain, and more specifically in the "pineal gland." But if the brain is physical, how does the mind exist "in" it? If the mind is non-physical, it has no location in space or time. So how does the mind relate to the body?

Bibliography

Williams, Bernard, "Rene Descartes," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 344-354.