Brian asked:

This is a question about dualism. Can the mind be split like a physical part of the body can? If you
remove certain parts of the brain will certain parts of the mind no longer exist, and can they be
relearned without the necessary parts of the brain?

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These questions are complex. We are pushed beyond the vexed question of trying to decide what
goes on at the interface between mind and body and presented with an intriguing notion about
fragmentation of the mind. The latter part of the second question is rather obscure, I am not quite
sure what is meant by 'can they be re-learned'. Perhaps I am wrong, but the implication seems to be
that memories or knowledge or both are constituents of the mind, which would be lost in the
circumstances described.

As you will be aware, Dualism is a massive topic, so the problem is, where do we start? Since
Descartes (1596 —1650) convinced himself, and others, that the world is made up of mind stuffand
matter stuff ,and presented us with the mind — body problem, the topic has branched off into into
many different directions and presented many interesting facets. I think we had better stick to the
basic ideas of Descartes.

Descartes uses the terms consciousness, mind and soul interchangeably, presuming they are one
and the same thing. However, in modern discussion they are sometimes claimed to be different
concepts. In some religious circles a tripartite idea suggests that the mind/consciousness is somehow
part of the brain — a sort of emanation, the soul presides over this complex and survives death.

Malebranche (1638 —1715) confused the issue further by introducing God into the equation. He said,
"It is clear that, in the union of soul and body, there is no other bond than the efficiency of divine and
immutable decrees." He saw the union of mind and body as simply another of God's natural laws.

I have no problem with the statement that bodies are extensions of ' matter' in space, but where is the
'mind' stuff? We can point to bodies, and most of us have a notion that we know what we mean by
matter/ physical material. We know something about the states of matter, gas, liquid and solid.
Unfortunately, we cannot discuss mind in the same way. The substitutions of consciousness and soul
don't seem to help. You probably know that Descartes thought the soul was in the pineal gland: this is
a small gland so Descartes must have been under the impression that the soul could somehow be
condensed into it: but how can a substance that has no material properties be condensed? Also,
there does not seem to be any passage in Descartes work in which he explains what he refers to as a
"natural connection" of happenings in what he holds to be two distinct substances. Since Descartes
science has vastly improved our knowledge of the human body, and particularly the brain.
Unfortunately, the mind remains a great mystery.

To come to the idea about 'splitting' the mind. First, we understand that bodies are solid, extended in
space, observable, flexible, can be perceived to move, and (after death, hopefully) can be
dismembered, dissected, and so on. However, we don' t seem able to say the same things about
minds, which are not solid, not extended in space. Does it then follow that because the mind does not
have these properties it cannot be split? I can only think of solid things being split. In fact, and this
may seem trivial, we would have our work cut out to split a gas or a liquid with a knife or even an axe!
Admitted we could partition them, but this is not 'splitting' in the sense posed by the question. To be a
liquid or gas, however, the mind would have to be constructed of particles, and as these are material
entities that is out of the question. Perhaps the mind is more like a 'force field', say, in my ignorance
of other possibilities, magnetism or gravity. I can't see these being split in the way envisaged, we
could insulate against magnetism but not against gravity. Another interesting point is, we cannot see
these things but we can see their effects.Is mind an unseen entity where only the effects of its
actions are observable? More of this and we shall be into Behaviourism!

Experience informs us that there is a link between thought and mechanical action, the problem is
again at the interface between mind and body. How does a thought depolarise a nerve fibre?! By
taking thought, say deciding to raise my arm, a sort of electrical charge is 'caused' to run down a
nerve fibre and effect muscle contraction. A thought has somehow had an effect on a nerve cell
membrane to bring about the exchange of ions that produces the electric current. To complicate it
further, I 'decide' to play a game of chess. Is it my brain that makes the decision or is it, as Descartes
would say, 'I'? There is certainly some difficulty in envisaging a brain that carries out mechanical
things making such a decision, I always get the feeling that the brain is doing as it is told, like picking
up the phone and dialling so that I may enquire if my friend is available to play chess. Speaking to my
friend the brain is wagging my tongue, moving my mandible, flexing my vocal cords, etc., but it seems
that 'I' am deciding what to say, and it seems that 'I' am interpreting my friends reply presented to me
by the brain's mechanical action of hearing.

Advances in science have not helped by making it evident that the brain is more like a complex gland,
a 'wet' thing, rather than the 'dry' electrical thing formerly accepted. We now find that much of the
activity in the brain derives from hormone — like substances and chemical transmitters it produces
itself. Unfortunately, the science is of no help to the philosophy, the mind and its contact with the
brain remains a mystery.

The question bears the implied notion that somehow the mind is sectioned to relate to existing
sections of the brain i.e. there is a section of mind over the temporal lobe, a section of mind over the
visual cortex, etc.. This does not seem to fit into any dualist concept so far as I am aware. This would
involve dividing the mind up or splitting it into sections, as we have discussed, a rather difficult thing
to do with a non-material substance. Those who support Dualism usually talk about a complete,
'self-contained' entity, and, so far as the soul is concerned, capable of surviving after death of the
body/ brain.

The business about re-learning, as I indicated previously, is difficult to deal with because I am not
clear in my ' mind ' what is meant. I must dip into my imagination (imagination! where does that come
from?) Let us pursue the idea that mind is a complete entity, not capable of being divided or broken
because it is not matter stuff. Let us further consider a person who is obviously showing physical
signs of brain damage and with obvious memory loss. All the afflictions seem to be centred on the
inability of parts of the brain to work properly, there is no indication that the mind is also impaired;
even the signs of memory loss have to be revealed physically, we are able to observe that the person
is unable to remember things, but nothing is revealed about the mind. From the dualist point of view
no damage can be done to a substance devoid of physical properties.

Here is a very over-simplified analogy. A very skilled joiner arriving to do a job discovers that he has
forgotten to bring his screwdriver. The customer lends him an old screwdriver which is bent and has a
piece broken off the end. The joiner, a superb craftsman, is seen by the customer to be making a
terrible mess of trying to put a screw in a hinge. Do you get my point, there is nothing wrong
concerning the skill of the joiner but the tool he is trying to use is not adequate te reveal his skill.
Could this be the case when the mind is trying to use a damaged brain? Yes, I would agree that
brains have to re-learn things, or as a dualist might say, the damaged parts would have to be
re-constituted so that the mind could use them properly.Would there then be a learning process
involving the re-co-ordination of mind and brain? It seems there would have to be. Following from
this, when the body dies there is not much point in the mind/ soul hanging around. Now we are
getting around to reincarnation: I had better finish.

John Brandon

Descartes did hold that the soul interacts with the body via the pineal gland. There, in some
mysterious way, the soul effects the motions of the 'animal spirits' passing through, and is affected by
them. But if pressed on the question, I don't think Descartes would have said that the soul is
'condensed in' the pineal gland. To be located is an essential property of extended substance.
Thinking substance cannot possess any of the essential properties of extended substance. Therefore,
thinking substance cannot be located at a point in space.

One is led to the idea that the soul must be located in the pineal gland, by the assumption that all
causal connection is 'local' in the sense that the cause and effect must be in contact with one another.
Descartes would surely reject this assumption, at least with regard to mind-body interaction, on the
ground that 'being contact' is a property that only physical things can have. The alternative, then, is to
hold that the soul exerts a local effectalthough it is not itself located.

Geoffrey Klempner