one of the last of the great

So this has to be the end of my random diatribes. Organic chemistry beckons me with its bent arms.

I have been noticing for quite some time that nobody subscribes to the Cartesian mind-body theory these days. In my neuroscience class, we are told that it is believed that the mind maps entirely to the brain (ie cognitive neuroscience is a continuous, not a discrete, connection between two identical realms differentiated only by mode of representation). In my philosophy of mind class we are told present day philosophers who have modernized the mind-body problem no longer agree with Descartes.

Well, having read the discourse on methods and meditations or whatever that book is called, I don't think it's right to dismiss Descartes so quickly. Granted, part of my agreement with Descartes stems from my religiosity (I think a lot of religious and spiritual sects would agree far more with Descartes than with modern philosophers and neuroscientists). However, I believe that the reasons for not shafting Descartes go deeper than my own personal opinion about religion.

There is a reason religion still exists. Nobody has been able to scientifically disprove religion because religion claims to disprove science. It is its own kind of strange loop. Religion has the hierchal advantage that Godel requires for a complete proof. However, as the human brain at least is just a product of the science spirituality claims to transcend, only the human spirit has the status necessary to contemplate religion/spirituality, being the stuff of a higher realm. This has enabled the debate between religion and science to be futile. Science can prove all it wants that religion is scientifically impossible, but those proofs are based on inadequate premise. You can't prove something about the entirety of A from observation of B when B is just a subset of A. This already obviously touches on Descartes.

The reason we must not throw out Descartes is our own rational ignorance. We may have a spiritual capacity to transcend science and logic, but we don't have a rational capacity (as the rational mind is arguably a product of science). Thus we have insufficient data to disprove Descartes, or even deem his theory any less likely than theories that are more consistent within the scientific realm. Proving the existence or nonexistence of the soul is something that neither philosophy nor science can really attempt at the moment (or, in my opinion, ever).

So while I slave away to learn the details of neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy, and all of those details at this technological school point towards a more scientifically accepted solution to the mind-body problem, I think it is absurd and logically wrong to just throw out Descartes, and because I find his theory more consistent with the realm in which science is just a subset, I see no reason that my professors should continue to harangue me about my opinion. All of their arguments and argumentative tools are two dimensional while I cling strongly to a three dimensional idea.

So I remain one o the last of the great admirers of Descartes. And now I *really* have to pay more attention to organic chemsitry.