For the Idealist, things external to the
mind are images, and of these the brain is one. Yet the images are in
the brain. This amounts to saying that the whole is contained in the
part. We tend, however, to avoid this by passing to a pseudo-realistic
position by saying that the brain is a thing and not an image. This is
passing over to the other system of notation. For the Realist it is the
essence of reality to suppose that there are things behind
representations. Some Realists maintain that the brain actually creates
the representation, which is the doctrine of Epiphenomenalism: while
others hold the view of the Occasionalists, and others posit one reality
underlying both. All however agree in upholding Parallelism. In the
hands of the Realist, the theory is equivalent to asserting that a
relation between two terms is equal to one of them. This involves
contradiction and Realism then crosses over to the other system of
notation. It cannot do without Idealism: science itself oscillates from
the one system to the other. We cannot admit Parallelism as a dogma--as
a metaphysical truth--however useful it may be as a working hypothesis.
Bergson then proceeds to state and to criticize some of the mischievous
ideas which arise from Parallelism. There is the idea of a brain-soul,
of a spot where the soul lives or where the brain thinks--which we have
not quite abandoned since Descartes named the pineal gland as the seat
of the soul. Then there is the false idea that all causality is
mechanistic and that there is nothing in the universe which is not
mathematically calculable.
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