The Root of All Evil

The root of all evil isn’t the love of the money; it’s the belief in dualism. Philosophical dualism is the belief that the mind exists separately from the body. Have you thought about this before? Is your mind separate from your body? The mind appears to lack the characteristics of physical things such as volume and density. We all hear that little voice within us. So, where do thoughts come from? It’s because of the seemingly non-spatial aspects of the mind that we make the mistake of thinking that the mind isn’t part of our physical body. However, all the evidence from neuroscience indicates that the mind is what the brain does for a living (beside keeping us alive). You need a fully functioning brain to sense the world, to interact with the world, and to form memories. The idea that the mind is an emergent property of the physical brain is called physical materialism. Materialism is a monist philosophy meaning that it does not advocate a separation of mind and body. So, how does this all figure in with the concept of the root of all evil? Well, when we buy into the idea of mind/brain dualism, we can by extension easily accept the idea that supernatural entities exist which also do not have physical attributes. Dualism is the philosophy that makes belief in god and the paranormal possible. You can’t have belief in evil without buying into the concept of dualism first. So, you see, dualism is the root of all evil. Without dualism, we would have to accept that what we call evil is within each of us and not the result of some supernatural influence.