Abstract
A BRIEF note to remove a possible misunderstanding suggested by Prof. Minchin. He seems to think, or to imagine that others will think, that when speaking of the action of mind on matter I conceive of mind as a thing that can sustain a “reaction”; so that a stress might exist with matter at one end and mind at the other. Such an absurdity would indeed play havoc with the laws of mechanics; at any rate, I never entertained such a notion for a moment, whether for a guiding or for any other kind of force. If I lift a table it is quite certain that the weight of the table, plus its mass-acceleration, is transmitted through my boots to the floor: so far mechanics is supreme. But not even Prof. Minchin could calculate whether I shall lift the table or not, nor what I shall do with it when I have lifted it. I should obey every law of mechanics if I cast it on a bonfire; but I should have interfered with the course of nature, regarded as a mechanically determinate problem, even by only lifting it.
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LODGE, O. Psychophysical Interaction. Nature 68, 53 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/068053c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/068053c0
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