Is it all in the mind?
QUESTION What is the origin of the expression ghost in the machine?
Gilbert rYle (1900-76) was a philosopher who taught at Oxford. His most important works included Philosophical Arguments (1945), the Concept Of Mind (1949), Dilemmas (1954), Plato’s Progress (1966) and On thinking (1979).
the Concept Of Mind (1949) dismantles perhaps the most famous theory in the philosophy of mind: rene Descartes’s view that each human being consists of a mind (which is a non-physical, purely spiritual thing) inhabiting a body, which is completely material and subject to the laws of physics. this theory is called Cartesian dualism.
the first chapter of the Concept Of Mind is entitled Descartes’ Myth and in it ryle attacks what he dubbed the ‘dogma of the ghost in the machine’.
He maintained that Cartesian dualism rests on an error or ‘category mistake’ — the assumption that our mental concepts (‘belief’, ‘desire’, and so on) function in the same way as those we use to describe the material world.
ryle argued that when we talk about a person’s ‘mind’, we’re not talking about an entity distinct from his body, but rather about his being disposed to behave or act in certain ways — intelligently, stupidly or imaginatively.
the term ghost in the machine reached a wider audience when Arthur Koestler explored similar themes in his 1967 book Ghost in the Machine.
the title has featured widely in the popular media ever since.
the Police called their 1981 album Ghost in the Machine and the concept and title of Masamune Shirow’s popular Manga (comic book), Ghost in the Shell, made into a live-action film starring Scarlett Johansson in a nude bodysuit, were inspired by Koestler’s book.
Keith White, Malvern, Worcs.
QUESTION St Patrick is said to have banished snakes from Ireland. Were there once snakes in that country?
At tHe end of the ice Age, animals spread north as the ice retreated. First to arrive in the british isles would have been furred animals, such as the woolly mammoth, followed by grass eaters such as oryx, elk and deer, which were, in turn, followed by predators such as bears, wolves and wildcats.
Humans will also have migrated, following the animals that were a food source. Snakes, lizards, newts and frogs, being cold blooded, need a lot of warming sunlight to allow them to move so would have been much later arrivals.
before the ice Age, the irish Sea was a large fresh water lake, but the erosion caused by the ice allowed it to connect to the sea as the ice melted about 10,000 years ago. larger mammals had probably crossed the ice to ireland before it melted, at the narrower St George’s Channel end, in search of new grazing.
While england was still connected to the Continent by a land bridge where the english Channel now lies, the melting ice eventually left ireland separate.
there is no fossil record of snakes or lizards ever having inhabited ireland.
the land bridge between england and europe was finally destroyed about 6,500 years ago, creating the english Channel and preventing the further unaided migration of animals from the Continent.
One example is the rabbit. these weren’t native to our shores and were brought over by the romans and Normans. Our native species of lepus is the mountain hare.
Frogs, toads and newts will have arrived in ireland by having spawn transported stuck to the feet of migrating wading birds, but the larger eggs of snakes and lizards couldn’t be carried that way.
Another animal not to make the journey to ireland was the mole, also kept out by the sea. it is ironic that a b&Q store in Dublin sells a mole repellent. the myth that St Patrick expelled the snakes in ireland probably grew after the saint’s death. it may be a reference to the serpent, the symbol of evil, which St Patrick would have metaphorically banished by converting the irish pagans to Christianity.
it is also a myth that St Patrick was the first Christian missionary to ireland. Pope Celestine sent bishop Palladius from briton to ireland during the roman era, around AD431.
Other places people with snake phobias can visit without fear are New Zealand, iceland, Greenland and Antarctica.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION Did Isaac Newton invent the cat flap?
it HAS been claimed Sir isaac Newton (1643-1727) — discoverer of the laws of gravity and inventor of the reflecting telescope and calculus — was irritated by his pet cat, the wonderfully named Spithead, and her kittens scratching at the door to be admitted to his workroom.
He thus created two holes — one large, one small — for the ingress and egress of the cat and kittens.
the story is derived from an 1827 biography by John Martin Frederick Wright, who added: ‘Whether this account be true or false, indisputably true is that there are in the door to this day two plugged holes of proper dimensions for the respective egresses of cat and kitten.’
Whether it was Newton or some earlier cat owner who created the holes, they are certainly not the earliest: cat holes have long been used to welcome feral cats to hunt rodent pests.
Geoffrey Chaucer described a cat hole in the Miller’s tale from his Canterbury tales. A servant whose knocks go unanswered uses the cat door to peek in: ‘An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe, And at the hole he looked in ful depe, And at the last he hadde of hym
a sighte.’ Just who added the flap is uncertain. it seems probable that early pet owners probably added a felt or canvas flap to prevent draughts. Ali Rowntree, Bury, Gtr Manchester.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT; fax them to 01952 780111 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.