DANCEST 805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Bodymind, Pineal Gland, Natural Science
Document Summary
Chapter 2: the scientific revolution of the 17th c and aftermath. Mechanistic view of the universe: a worldview according to which everything in the material universe can be understood as a complicated machine. Descartes (similar to plato) believed that god had created a self-perpetuating machine, so that he did not have to continuously look after his creation. It replaced the aristotelian (similar to galileo) model, his views cantered on the purposes of things within the universe (the final cause) and on the fact that living things were driven by the souls. Descartes rejected all goals, emotions and intelligence in nature and claimed that everything in the universe was a perfectly designed mechanism made to function independently so that god didn"t have to attend to it anymore. He conjectured that the soul could influence the body via the pineal gland the only organ that is present once in the brain) Substance dualism: thoughts, feelings, experiences are different from the brain.
