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Descartes believed that the mind was non-physical and permeated the entire body, but that the mind and body interacted via the pineal gland. [30] [31] This theory has changed throughout the years, and in the 20th century its main adherents were the philosopher of science Karl Popper and the neurophysiologist John Carew Eccles.
The more subtle parts of the blood go to the brain while the others descend through the vessels intended for generation. Cerebral blood produces in the pineal gland, a “very bright and very pure flame” called animal spirits. [6] The second part explains the movement. Descartes then uses the metaphor of a fountain.
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, [1] or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. [2] Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.
But he also argued that the animal spirits that moved around the body could distort the commands from the pineal gland, thus humans had to learn how to control their passions. [113] Descartes advanced a theory on automatic bodily reactions to external events, which influenced 19th-century reflex theory. He argued that external motions, such as ...
In the first part of his work, Descartes ponders the relationship between the thinking substance and the body. For Descartes, the only link between these two substances is the pineal gland (art. 31), the place where the soul is attached to the body. The passions that Descartes studies are in reality the actions of the body on the soul (art. 25).
Descartes therefore believed that the pineal gland was the "seat of the soul" and that any information that was to "enter" consciousness had to pass through the pineal gland before it could enter the mind. In his perspective, the pineal gland is the place where all information "comes together."
Descartes' theory that interaction between the mind and the physical world occurred in the pineal gland was seen as inadequate by a number of philosophers in his era, who offered alternate views: Nicholas Malebranche suggested occasionalism, according to which mind and body appear to interact but are in fact moved separately by God, while ...
However, Descartes believed that the physical body and the mind must be physically connected at some point. Descartes’ reasoning came from his observation that every structure of the brain is paired except for the pineal gland. He felt that the pineal gland must be the meeting point of the physical body and the mind, and therefore, the pineal ...