Thursday, October 10th, 2002
Theories of Reality

Announcements:

The professor announced that we will
receive a study guide on Tuesday
(10/15/02) for our upcoming exam. The
exam will probably begin on Thursday,
and testing will be open until the following
Wednesday (10/17 - 10/23).

Subcategories of Dualism

1. Cartesian Interactionism (sometimes
called Substance Dualism)
-The brain is an interface between mind
and body, and they interact with each
other. Ideas do not have physical
properties.

This view was put forth by Descartes. He
believed the way we think and speak
about mind and body are completely
different; therefore, they are different
substances.

Descartes also believed that animals do
not have souls. He thought they were just
organic “robots” that are conditioned to
react to their environment by
stimulus/response.

2. Epiphenomenalism (also called Weak
Dualism)
-The brain affects the mind, but not the
reverse. Consciousness is a byproduct
of material processes in the brain.

This concept is somewhat analogous to
the gas gauge and gas tank in a car. The
gas tank (brain, the physical) if full of gas.
The gas gauge (mind, the mental or
spiritual) is an outward expression of the
gas tank, but the gauge in no way
influences the tank.

This belief solves the dualist problem,
“How can an immaterial substance
(mind) affect a material one (body)?
Epiphenomenalism simply states that it
doesn’t.

There are, however, many places where
this belief does not hold up under
scrutiny. Hypnotism is an example,
where it is possible for someone to be
completely unaware of what may be
happening to their body (mind over
matter). The placebo effect is another,
where people believe they are receiving
treatment for an ailment (when they
actually are not), and they get better just
because they believe they can.

3. Parallelism (also called
Occasionalism)
-The mental and physical are two
separate processes which run side by
side, but never actually interact in any
way. They seem to because they
synchronized with one another (by God?).

An analogy to this is the reel of a movie
and its accompanying soundtrack. They
aren’t really connected in any way, but
they are synched up to make it appear so.

This belief raises all kinds of interesting
ideas, if it is true. It follows, then, that
there is no such thing as free will, and
everything in our life is predetermined. It
would also seem that God does not just
allow suffering on our planet (murder,
rape, etc.), but that he intentionally
causes it by allowing these physical acts
to happen.

Gottfried Leibniz, a German philosopher
and mathematician founded this theory.
He was also one of the two (independent)
founders of differential and integral
calculus. See
http://www.newgenevacenter.org/biograp
hy/leibniz.htm for more information.