In article ,
Jangchub wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:46:07 -0700 (PDT), Chris
wrote:


From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism...osophy_of_mind)

"The central claim of what is often called Cartesian dualism, in honor
of Descartes, is that the immaterial mind and the material body, while
being ontologically distinct substances, causally interact. This is an
idea which continues to feature prominently in many non-European
philosophies. Mental events cause physical events, and vice-versa. But
this leads to a substantial problem for Cartesian dualism: How can an
immaterial mind cause anything in a material body, and vice-versa?
This has often been called the "problem of interactionism".

Descartes himself struggled to come up with a feasible answer to this
problem. In his letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine, he
suggested that animal spirits interacted with the body through the
pineal gland, a small gland in the centre of the brain, between the
two hemispheres. The term "Cartesian dualism" is also often associated
with this more specific notion of causal interaction through the
pineal gland. However, this explanation was not satisfactory: how can
an immaterial mind interact with the physical pineal gland? Because
Descartes's was such a difficult theory to defend, some of his
disciples, such as Arnold Geulincx and Nicholas Malebranche, proposed
a different explanation: That all mind-body interactions required the
direct intervention of God. According to these philosophers, the
appropriate states of mind and body were only the occasions for such
intervention, not real causes. These occasionalists maintained the
strong thesis that all causation was directly dependent on God,
instead of holding that all causation was natural except for that
between mind and body."

Chris

It was the statement, "Caught in Cartesian dualism are ye? Good luck.
You gave the rocks a good chuckle though, good on you ;o)" which I was
questioning. Cartesian dualism was nothing new to eastern philosophy,
as it shows in the definition. The historical Buddha of the Shakya
tribe figured dualism out long before Descartes did.

The cup has tea in it. If you break the cup, it will no longer be a
cup. It will be a pile of shards or whatever you choose to call it,
but the tea is still the tea. So the body is a vessel for the mind.
It is not part of the brain. The brain functions as a local
powerhouse to charge the physical body to operate, but it has nothing
to do with the mind.

Emptiness, as Buddhism discusses, is the complete lack of dualistic
properties...and everything is inter dependant, tied together by cause
and effect. Karma is a very complex discussion and far too many
people are not willing, nor are they interested in the least about its
workings. Certainly not here in rec.gardens.


http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/bstatt10.htm

I find it interesting that Buddha is not going over well in India.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-priori...e.do?id=104102
4&n1=3&n2=30

Bill

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA
Neat place .. http://www.petersvalley.org/