Theory of mind - on the computer. a bit funny (or not)

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You say it's a "western" view. YOu can point to a single other culture that does not see the mind and body as somehow separate. Cause i"ve always found that to be an interesting claim, and yet when I talk with people who are of various native American religions, they have the same concept that my head, my ideas, my dreams, my spirit is some kind of "soul" like thing, and the body is what it is. Ancient texts from Egypt talk that way: ideas, thoughts, dreams are all a more 'real' part of us than a hand or a kidney. I have always tended to suspect that this idea of a "self" more critical than the body is universal, not western. Philo was never my strength, but if you include "soul" "spirit" and "essence" as part of the "mind" the decartian dualism seems far more common than just the west.

Pink mowse.pngGodot What do cats dream about?17:56, 30 March 2012

I should say "modern" conception, that would be more accurate. What I'm talking about is the shift in the view of the self as being defined by its place in a cosmic order to an individualistic, single-mind "self" that occurred during the early modern era. (That's a bit of an oversimplification of course.) Then there are religions like Buddhism, that reject the notion of a "self" entirely as merely an illusion.

Nebuchadnezzar (talk)18:32, 30 March 2012