The dualism of mind and matter, if we have been right so far, cannot be
allowed as metaphysically valid. Nevertheless, we seem to find a certain
dualism, perhaps not ultimate, within the world as we observe it. The
dualism is not primarily as to the stuff of the world, but as to causal
laws. On this subject we may again quote William James. He points out
that when, as we say, we merely "imagine" things, there are no such
effects as would ensue if the things were what we call "real." He takes
the case of imagining a fire.
"I make for myself an experience of blazing fire; I place it near my
body; but it does not warm me in the least. I lay a stick upon it and
the stick either burns or remains green, as I please. I call up water,
and pour it on the fire, and absolutely no difference ensues. I account
for all such facts by calling this whole train of experiences unreal, a
mental train. Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water
is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a
mental fire.... With 'real' objects, on the contrary, consequences
always accrue; and thus the real experiences get sifted from the mental
ones, the things from our thoughts of them, fanciful or true, and
precipitated together as the stable part of the whole experience--chaos,
under the name of the physical world."*
* "Essays in Radical Empiricism," pp. 32-3.
In this passage James speaks, by mere inadvertence, as though the
phenomena which he is describing as "mental" had NO effects. This is, of
course, not the case: they have their effects, just as much as physical
phenomena do, but their effects follow different laws. For example,
dreams, as Freud has shown, are just as much subject to laws as are the
motions of the planets. But the laws are different: in a dream you may
be transported from one place to another in a moment, or one person
may turn into another under your eyes. Such differences compel you to
distinguish the world of dreams from the physical world.
If the two sorts of causal laws could be sharply distinguished, we could
call an occurrence "physical" when it obeys causal laws appropriate to
the physical world, and "mental" when it obeys causal laws appropriate
to the mental world. Since the mental world and the physical world
interact, there would be a boundary between the two: there would be
events which would have physical causes and mental effects, while there
would be others which would have mental causes and physical effects.
Those that have physical causes and mental effects we should define as
"sensations." Those that have mental causes and physical effects might
perhaps be identified with what we call voluntary movements; but they do
not concern us at present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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