of two types of substance: physical and nonphysical. According to Descartes, our minds and bodies causally interact with one another almostall of the time. Meaning that events and states in our mind can cause physical events inour bodies and vice versa. For example, a tack puncturing your foot (a physical event)causes you to feel pain (a mental event) and causes you to say ouch, (a physical event)(Barcalow, pg. 72). As a result, the term Interactionism was used to explain the relationbetween the physical and mental. Descartes theory of Substance Dualism was his bestway of explaining human life and how our minds are able to interact with our bodies.Of course, not everyone is going to agree with Descartes theory. There are manyobjections one can make about Substance Dualism, but mainly there are three. First ofall, some believe causal interaction between the body and mind is a physicalphenomenon. For example, throwing a baseball is the result of ones arm being swungback in a smooth motion and using force to release the ball (science has proven that forceis physical). What caused the arm to throw the baseball? The muscles in the armcontracted, thus the arm raised. The electrical impulses that originated in the brain toldthe arm to throw the ball. Some people find it impossible that something nonphysical cancreate energy or force. Another objection is that we as people cannot observe the mind. The phraseseeing is believing automatically comes to mind here. If we cant actually see andmeasure our thoughts and feelings, how do we know they exist? Do ghosts exist? Howdo we know? We dont. We cant physically see or feel them just like the interactionbetween our body and mind. We have yet to find a way to physically observe theinteraction.The third main objection is the problem of evolutionary development of allspecies, including humans. According to science, all living organisms evolved fromone-celled, self-replicating molecules...
