…law from which ultimately comes the laws of nature. So that all the founding fathers of mechanistic science, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Kepler and Newton, were either Platonists or Pythagoreans, who saw in maths a kind of higher reality, a transcendent…

…Western thought about the mind has been split between two models, the dualist and the materialist. The dualists, following Descartes, the French philosopher, said that the mind is outside time and space, it's non-material, non-physical, and yet it mysteriously…

…more extensive than the brain, not simply confined to the inside of the head. Philosophically, it goes back to the distinction that Descartes made in the 17th century. He said that matter is extended and the mind is not extended. It's not in space and…

…the divine god was in nature nature was in god And there just wasn't that division. But the mechanistic theory of Descartes created that division quite explicitly. I mean, that's why it's called Cartesian dualism. and what Descartes said is the whole of…

…mechanistic theory of Descartes created that division quite explicitly. I mean, that's why it's called Cartesian dualism. and what Descartes said is the whole of nature is a mechanical machine like inanimate but there's also consciousness and consciousness…

…feeling, having a thought, having some kind of will, having comprehension. And this whole problem arises in the modern period, since Descartes particularly. I mean, poor old Descartes, I think perhaps he gets blamed for more than is quite right, because I…

…kind of will, having comprehension. And this whole problem arises in the modern period, since Descartes particularly. I mean, poor old Descartes, I think perhaps he gets blamed for more than is quite right, because I think really he's what would be called…

…the thing that's extended and hence matter, and then res cogitans, the thing that's thought, which would be consciousness. But whatever Descartes himself is or isn't responsible for, certainly this led to a kind of splitting in the period since the 17th…

…there. Well, I think it goes back in Western culture to the 17th century in the famous Cartesian split. In Descartes' philosophy, he separated the realm of nature, which he said was mechanical and unconscious, made of matter, operating in accordance…

…human morality, because the only thing that was open to God in the whole of nature were human minds, according to Descartes. Cartesian dualism split God from nature, so the whole of nature was inanimate and mechanical, including human bodies. And God,…

…And that was the only thing left, except for angels and God, which were immaterial spirits like the human mind. This was Descartes' view, and it created an extreme dualism of body and soul, matter and spirit. So for Descartes, the whole world was…

…human mind. This was Descartes' view, and it created an extreme dualism of body and soul, matter and spirit. So for Descartes, the whole world was mechanical, made of unconscious matter. Consciousness existed only in humans, angels and God, and was separate…

…as unconscious. No one did experiments to accurate to many places of decimals. It was simply defined as unconscious by Descartes. And it's remained so ever since in the view of scientists, without further discussion. Now, Cartesian dualism... Could I have…

…new as a philosophy. It's what people thought in the Middle Ages, basically. And in the 17th century, soon after Descartes, in the next generation of philosophers, people were already exploring this possibility. One of them was Leibniz, and Leibniz argued…

…And that was the only thing left, except for angels and God, which were immaterial spirits like the human mind. This was Descartes' view, and it created an extreme dualism of body and soul, matter and spirit. So for Descartes, the whole world was…

…human mind. This was Descartes' view, and it created an extreme dualism of body and soul, matter and spirit. So for Descartes, the whole world was mechanical, made of unconscious matter. Consciousness existed only in humans, angels, and God, and was separate…

…as unconscious. No one did experiments to accurate to many places of decimals. It was simply defined as unconscious by Descartes, and it's remained so ever since in the view of scientists without further discussion. Now, Cartesian dualism Could I have…

…new as a philosophy. It's what people thought in the Middle Ages, basically. And in the 17th century, soon after Descartes, in the next generation of philosophers, people were already exploring this possibility. One of them was Leibniz, and Leibniz argued…

…head, that all our experience is located inside the head. In 17th century science, there was also a spiritual dimension, and Descartes' famous split said, well, actually, everything in the material world is made up of unconscious matter, but there's also the…

…can stretch. Now we've spoken really mostly about science, but is one of the problems that science generally since the days of Descartes has generally drifted away from philosophy? Do we need more philosophy in science in order to try to make sense of the…

…Even though many modern scientists are atheists, the founding fathers of modern science were all interested in theology, Newton, Descartes, Galileo, Kepler and others. And they thought that the mind of God worked mathematically. Mathematicians love the idea…

…the structure of the universe through mathematical laws, and human minds, through the God-given gift of reason, as Descartes thought, can understand mathematics and understand the universe through mathematics. both have their source in the divine mind.…

…thought, can understand mathematics and understand the universe through mathematics. both have their source in the divine mind. So Descartes, in a sense, was following a traditional view. But when people in the 19th century, when materialism became the…

…root. And that root is the bifurcation of nature, as Alfred North Whitehead said. Whitehead places the blame. as always, with Descartes. So Descartes, if you don't know, of course, split mind and matter. He was a mathematician, geometrician, and he said…

…that root is the bifurcation of nature, as Alfred North Whitehead said. Whitehead places the blame. as always, with Descartes. So Descartes, if you don't know, of course, split mind and matter. He was a mathematician, geometrician, and he said that mind was…

…was for him purely extension or space. And it seems that what has happened is, in our culture, we've endorsed Cartesianism, Descartes thought here. We've left the soul to religion. We've left matter, firstly, as extension to science. And then what happened…

…as a whole is one with all its attributes. And he calls, Spinoza called that substance, that one substance, as opposed to Descartes' two substances, called it God. I suppose we are special in the sense that we are complex organisms compared to many…

…Tim. I think what you said about people being part of nature, I mean, this is precisely Spinoza's reaction to Descartes. Descartes, following the Christian tradition, saw mankind as very special, not merely because of mankind's intelligence, but because they…

…he have a dog? Do you remember? Yes, indeed. Do you remember why you asked? Oh, I think Sherrington asked this of Descartes. And when Sherrington worked with his de-cerebrate dogs, he called them Cartesian trigger puppets. But I confess, I was thinking I…

…because the people he was talking about, people he was writing about were themselves living through horrible times, especially there were these, Descartes of course was a soldier and took part in a lot of bloody operations and many of the heroes of that…

…can't exist. Then you get the hard problem. It ought not to exist at all. Yeah, it's weird because it all came from Descartes, but really Descartes is saying consciousness is all that exists or something, but it turns into this radical doubt of your own…

…get the hard problem. It ought not to exist at all. Yeah, it's weird because it all came from Descartes, but really Descartes is saying consciousness is all that exists or something, but it turns into this radical doubt of your own kind of epistemological…

…to everything, when in fact it's really all you can presuppose is consciousness or take a priority is consciousness. Well, what Descartes did was just split the world into consciousness, which is God, angels, and human minds, and matter, or nature, which is…

…Then all that's left of consciousness is the human mind, and then that has then to become the matter of the brain. So Descartes actually had God and angels in the whole realm of consciousness, but he said it's not in space and time, it's supernatural,…

…consciousness, just made of unconscious matter, mechanical. But the founders of modern science in the 17th century, like Newton and Descartes and Robert Boyle and Kepler and Galileo were not atheists. They were Christians, but they had a very dualistic view…

…closely connected to naturalism for its history, the background to this really is in the 17th century, the famous Cartesian split. Descartes managed to carve out a realm for science of nature. rays extensor the whole of nature all matter the whole universe…

…spirit, God and consciousness entirely out of nature, except For this one place it still existed was in the human mind because Descartes thought humans still needed reason to do maths and to understand nature and to be scientists. So there was this tiny…

…can't exist. Then you get the hard problem. It ought not to exist at all. Yeah, it's weird because it all came from Descartes, but really Descartes is saying consciousness is all that exists or something, but it turns into this radical doubt of your own…

…get the hard problem. It ought not to exist at all. Yeah, it's weird because it all came from Descartes, but really Descartes is saying consciousness is all that exists or something, but it turns into this radical doubt of your own kind of epistemological…

…to everything, when in fact it's really all you can presuppose is consciousness or take a priority is consciousness. Well, what Descartes did was just split the world into consciousness, which is God, angels, and human minds, and matter or nature, which is…

…then all that's left of consciousness is the human mind, and then that has then to become the matter of the brain. Descartes actually had God and angels and a whole realm of consciousness, but he said it's not in space and time, it's supernatural,…

…the 17th century revolution, the whole of nature became mechanical. The whole universe was a machine made of non-conscious matter. Descartes defined matter as non-conscious and separated off consciousness into a realm of spirit which was not in space or time.…

…into a realm of spirit which was not in space or time. There were only three categories of conscious things in Descartes' universe, God, angels, and human minds. The rest of nature, all the stars, all the heavenly bodies, everything on Earth, all…

…animism, the idea that there's life and some kind of soul in all nature. In the 17th century, in reaction against Descartes, There were two prominent European philosophers who argued in favor of panpsychism or animism. One was Leibniz, who often got into…

…logical conclusion, but if you do, this is the logical conclusion. This is the development of the movement started by Galileo and Descartes. If you say memories, what are you talking about? From which memories are we built up? Which stories did we already…

…Animals and plants became machines. The human body became a machine. So there was a radical split. They still had God for Descartes, who was the main architect of this split. God still existed. God and angels and human minds were still spiritual realities.…

…After all, we inherited from the 17th century mechanistic revolution the idea that we are the only conscious beings. Descartes famously thought that animals were machines and plants are machines. They're still treated like that in biology, molecular biology.…

…in the 17th century. The founding fathers of modern science in the 16th and 17th century, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, all thought that what they were doing was discovering the eternal mathematical laws of nature, which were ideas in the…

…assumption. They think it's a fact. assumption of the ten dogmas is that matter is unconscious. I've already mentioned that. Descartes defined matter as unconscious and moved the whole of consciousness into the separate category of spirit, God, angels, and…