Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 38 of 138
Substance dualism and religious faith
Because of the failures of Cartesian-style dualism, especially the failure to get an adequate or even coherent account of the relationship between the mind and the body, it is widely assumed that substance dualism in any form is out of the question. This is not to say that no serious professionals are substance dualists. But in my experience most substance dualists I know are people who hold this view for some religious reasons, or as part of a religious faith. It is a consequence of substance dualism that when our body is destroyed our soul can continue to survive; and this makes the view appealing to adherents of religions that believe in an afterlife. But among most of the professionals in the field, substance dualism is not regarded as a serious possibility. A prominent exception is the defense of dualism offered by Karl Popper and J. C. Eccles.1 They claim that there are two quite distinct worlds, World 1 of physical objects and states and World 2 of states of consciousness. Each is a separate and distinct world that interacts with the other. Actually they go Descartes one better and also postulate World 3, a world of “culture in all its manifestations.”