Descartes asserted that mind and matter are essentially different in his mind-body duality theory and that physical substance is incapable of thought while mental substance is incapable of existing in space. Critics of this theory – continue to assert as well – that the mind and body are not completely separate and interact so there must be a connection between the physical and the mental world.
To answer this, Descartes suggested that the experience of this connection occurs in the brain since the brain is a physical object different from the ‘mind’ in his dualism theory yet it’s where mind and body coexist. Some theological philosophers argue that God forms this connection. However, most philosophers favor monism: that everything is either physical or immaterial over dualism. It was Spinoza, who proposed a theory incorporating both dualism and monism as an alternative middle ground.
