Chant of the East – Beautiful Music for Meditation

The idea of represents the metaphysical point of view that mind and body are two distinct substances, each one having a very different essential nature.

Dualism simply means that there is a separate conscious mind, and a separate physical body.  In a dictionary, “dualism” is defined as the theory that something is split into 2 parts that are completely separate from each other. The opposite of “dualism” is “monism” which is the theory that something cannot be split into any parts.

This philosophical distinction between mind and body can be traced to the ancient Greeks, but in more modern times there is a well-known version of dualism that credited to Rene Descartes who lived in the 17th century. He was a French mathematician, philosopher, and physiologist who gave the first systematic account of the mind/body relationship.  According to Descartes, all human beings consist of 2 quite unlike substances, the mind and the body, which cannot not exist in unity.

He believed that the mind was “unextended”, an immaterial but thinking substance and that the body was an “extended”, material but unthinking substance. The body was subject to mechanical laws; however, the mind was not.

The Concept Of Mind Body Dualism

Modern science does not support either because it is extremely difficult to test.  Self-analysis and reflection are unreliable, and there are no traditional mathematical equations to be able to apply and use like traditional sciences have.

The can also be rejected because of the obvious strong correlations between the mind and the nerves of the body. The mind is totally reliant on the body’s nervous system. Dualism also assumes that because something cannot be physically observed, (mental cognitions are not physically observable) then it must exist in the non-physical realm.  With this assumption then there is no possibility for scientific investigation of the topic.

In the past orthodox Christian views of the mind-body relationship greatly hindered the progression and development of medical science research. According to these Christian views, human beings were spiritual beings and that the body and soul were one being. In their view diseases were attributed to non-material forces such as personal or collective wrong-doings. Their view believed that for the person’s soul to ascend into heaven, the human body had to be preserved intact and not compromised.

As a result of this view, there was a total religious prohibition on the study of the human anatomy through dissection. Descartes, through his mind body dualism notion, changed the old views and as a result the human body was then allowed to be handed over to medical science research. As a result the way was then paved for huge progress in medical science through the study of human physiology and anatomy.

is still a very interesting topic even to this day – the concept of it leads individuals to many other deep questions about the self, free-will, and the cognitive existence as a whole of human beings.