How Can an Unembodied Intelligence Interact with the Natural World?
There is in fact no conceptual difficulty for an unembodied intelligence to interact coherently with the natural world. We are not in the situation of Descartes seeking a point of contact between the material and the spiritual at the pineal gland. For Descartes the physical world consisted of extended bodies that interacted only via direct contact. Thus for a spiritual dimension to interact with the physical world could only mean that the spiritual caused the physical to move. In arguing for a substance dualism in which human beings consist of both spirit and matter, Descartes therefore had to argue for a point of contact between spirit and matter. He settled on the pineal gland because it was the one place in the brain where symmetry was broken and where everything seemed to converge (most parts of the brain have right and left counterparts). Although Descartess argument doesnt work, the problem it tries to solve is still with us. When I attended a Santa Fe symposium sponsored by the
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