Descartes Mind Body Dualism

The mind/body dualism introduced to us in the first reading “Minds and bodies”, is the theory that our minds and bodies are two separate things. To René Descartes, the mind controls everything about the body, it is self-contained and self-enclosed. The body is just an extension of our minds. It is unconscious, lifeless and acted upon. This theory comes from the belief that everything in this world can be doubted, there is no real proof that what our eyes are seeing is real thus there is no proof that our body exists. Yet, the only certainty is that our mind is doubting and thinking, which lead to believe that our minds must be real. This explains the famous saying “I think, therefore I am” by René Descartes. The theory considers that our minds are alive whereas our bodies aren’t. It is a way of thinking that is prominent in our lives but that we aren’t always aware of. In social sciences for example, the body is seen as unconscious more often than not, and that what the mind is more important. They are more focused on doing research about how the mind works, how it reacts and how it thinks.
We, as humans, often use that metaphor by comparing, for example, the heart to a pump or the brain to a computer. The second reading “Souls in silicon” is also another example that reinforces this metaphor. Transferring our minds into a machine doesn’t change the way the mind works; it still has control over the new “body” and it still has the power to make the body do the average everyday life actions. The only changes we see are the improvements in the senses, but even then, the mind still has all the control over the body and it can decide what action the body is going to do next. The brain is the core to being a human, meaning that at this moment the body is