metonymy4u

The mind body problem is a relic of a dead age. It is the product of ignorance. Ignorance of the relationship between events. Prior to the scientific revolution, people saw a difference between what they took to be animate and inanimate matter. For example, your coffee doesn’t usually talk to you each morning, and your children do (if they’re not adolescents). So we develop a sense of distinct events: living and non-living. But now we understand that as the molecules of your coffee become incorporated into your body, they become part of a living system. Are the so called inanimate molecules that make up your body themselves alive? From this perspective, of course they are. Because they are part of a living system. If you take them out and put them into a non-living system then they are otherwise. The context is all.