Who am I?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1277215,00.html
Paul Bloom proposes biological foundations for the split between mind
and body in Descartes' Baby
Phil Whitaker
Saturday August 7, 2004
The Guardian
Descartes' Baby
by Paul Bloom
320pp, Heinemann, £20
Cartesian duality - that the soul and the body are separate entities -
is deeply rooted in western culture. It articulates what appears to be
a readily recognisable truth. I have a body, indeed I have a mind; but
I experience my "self" as something distinct, connected with but at
the same time independent of the sum of my parts.
Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale, proposes biological
foundations for our dualism. Research suggests that babies are
equipped to function in two separate spheres, the material and the
social. The brains of newborn infants are primed with an appreciation
of the fundamental physical properties of objects. They also treat
certain objects (faces and hands) entirely differently, understanding
their movement and behaviour in terms of mental states - goals,
drives, emotions - not physical laws. As children develop, experience
and learning put culturally specific flesh on these bare bones, but
from its earliest days the human brain is structured to perceive the
world along dualistic lines.
Paul Bloom
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