The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

by Jeremy Lent

It is almost impossible to overstate the profound impact Descartes has had on modern cognition. Along with Plato and Augustine, Descartes was a prime architect of the structures of thought so pervasive in the modern world that they are frequently viewed as self-evident truths: that our thoughts constitute our essence and that the mind is separate from the body and is what makes us human.39 Descartes's dualism also forms the basis for the modern view of our relationship with the natural world. According to Cartesian logic, if the mind is the source of our true identity, then our bodies are mere matter with no intrinsic value. And if that is true of our own bodies, it must be equally true of the rest of nature—animals, plants, and everything else—since no other entity possesses a mind capable of reason. In Descartes's own words: “I do not recognize any difference between the machines made by craftsmen and the various bodies that nature alone composes.”40