Abstract

What is the relation between the body and the soul, or mind? Is the mind something that exists independently of the body? Or is the body, specifically the brain and the nervous system, and the mind merely two different descriptions of the same thing, a person? Our common-sense understanding, which is riddled with religious influence, leans towards the first alternative. But then what is the mind? How do the mind and the body interact, if they are in fact fundamentally different things? For some disciplines, such as psychology and psychiatry, these ontologial questions are important.