Parallelism (philosophy)
Encyclopedia
In parallelism, mental events and physical events are perfectly coordinated by God
; so that when a mental event such as Sally's decision to walk across the room occurs, simultaneously Sally's body heads across the room, in the absence of a direct cause-effect relation between mind and body. Mental and physical events are just perfectly coordinated by God, either in advance (as per Gottfried Leibniz
's idea of pre-established harmony
) or at the time (as in the Occasionalism
of Nicolas Malebranche
).
Parallelism is a theory related to dualism
which suggests that although there is a correlation between mental and physical events there is no causal connection. The body and mind do not interact with each other but simply run alongside one another, in parallel, and there happens to be a correspondence between the two but neither cause each other. That is to say that the physical event of burning my finger and the mental event of feeling pain just happen to occur simultaneously - one does not cause the other. An example given by Janice Thomas is one of a punctual student who always arrives on time for his classes. One of his classes begins at four, so whenever he arrives in the room for that particular class a clock strikes four. However, it is not his arrival that causes the clock to chime - the two just happen to coincide. An appeal is made to God, as it is believed that at the beginning of time, God sets up a mental chain of events and a physical chain of events and ensures in his construction of them that they will always run in parallel.
In his book The Mind and its place in nature, C. D. Broad maintains that parallelism is, "The assertion is that to every particular change in the mind there corresponds a certain change in the brain which this mind animates, and that to every change in the brain there corresponds a certain change in the mind which animates this brain."
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
; so that when a mental event such as Sally's decision to walk across the room occurs, simultaneously Sally's body heads across the room, in the absence of a direct cause-effect relation between mind and body. Mental and physical events are just perfectly coordinated by God, either in advance (as per Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
's idea of pre-established harmony
Pre-established harmony
Gottfried Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony is a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" only affects itself, but all the substances in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to...
) or at the time (as in the Occasionalism
Occasionalism
Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God...
of Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche ; was a French Oratorian and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world...
).
Parallelism is a theory related to dualism
Dualism (philosophy of mind)
In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....
which suggests that although there is a correlation between mental and physical events there is no causal connection. The body and mind do not interact with each other but simply run alongside one another, in parallel, and there happens to be a correspondence between the two but neither cause each other. That is to say that the physical event of burning my finger and the mental event of feeling pain just happen to occur simultaneously - one does not cause the other. An example given by Janice Thomas is one of a punctual student who always arrives on time for his classes. One of his classes begins at four, so whenever he arrives in the room for that particular class a clock strikes four. However, it is not his arrival that causes the clock to chime - the two just happen to coincide. An appeal is made to God, as it is believed that at the beginning of time, God sets up a mental chain of events and a physical chain of events and ensures in his construction of them that they will always run in parallel.
In his book The Mind and its place in nature, C. D. Broad maintains that parallelism is, "The assertion is that to every particular change in the mind there corresponds a certain change in the brain which this mind animates, and that to every change in the brain there corresponds a certain change in the mind which animates this brain."