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Cartesian Dualism Research Paper

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In order to adequately address the problem of free will, we must first discuss the mind body problem. Generally, humans throughout history have believed the mind and body to be two separate entities. This idea, also known as Cartesian dualism, promotes the notion of an uncaused mind or soul that exists free from the constraints of the natural world. Before the discovery of neural networking, this dualism seemed like the common sense view. It sure does seem like there is some sort of separate “mind” that controls what we do and creates thoughts that appear to have no physical properties. However, the whole point of philosophy is to question our previous notions of common sense and to review controversies objectively, utilizing the new evidence at hand. Using this …show more content…
Thus, this consequence of physicalism poses a huge challenge for our current conception of free will. As purely physical beings, humans can only be made up of two things: our genetics and our experiences. Obviously, we have no say in which chromosomes we inherit and thus have absolutely no control over our own genes. When it comes to our experiences though, one could argue that we can choose to join the gymnastics team or to not study for a test, and that these decisions will ultimately affect what experiences we will have in the future. However, one must then ask where did those decisions come from? Due to the laws of physical nature which state that nothing can cause itself, any decision that you make must have been caused by a previous input, and each of these previous inputs must also have been caused. Therefore, every single one of our thoughts, character traits, and actions, can be traced back through a set chain of mental and experiential events. So, in fact, your choosing not to study for the test was predetermined by a million prior causal

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