Hi All,

    As [one of the participants in the discussion] has pointed out, and I agree, the Mind is not localized to the head/brain. Yet most of what we mistake for Reality involves the motion and rest of our extremely complex existing body/head/brain which our Mind has "embraced" (so to speak, not literally, see for instance Short Treatise Part 2, Chapter 22, P05-06.)

    Spinoza suggests that we think about how the Intellect or Understanding conceives bodies and he concludes that all conceptions of bodies must involve the conception of motion and rest and that the Intellect only conceives motion and rest by first conceiving the Attribute of Extension (see for instance TEI-P108(87) items 2 and 3, and Ethics 2, the whole section on bodies following Prop. 13 and especially Lemma 2.) None of this can be imagined, although, no doubt, images will arise in our existing brain/body as we read these words (using that same existing brain/body of course.) Spinoza writes in the Ethics that these things are common to all and will be represented by an adequate idea in the mind and he further says that these form the bases of Reason [see for instance E2P40N2 and the proof of E2P44C2]. But so what? This all may just sound like abstract physics or some such.

    Spinoza writes about the Emotions, or confusions of the mind, in Part 3 of the Ethics, and it's not too hard to find references to the motion and rest of the body everywhere there, even if he does not explicitly state it. For example; "...the body is affected by...", "...modifications of the body..." --one body only affects another body through motion and rest and the bodies themselves are only conceived clearly as motion and rest [Lemma 1, 2, etc.]. Early on in examining the emotions he shows (keep in mind that this involves the "existing" body referred to in E2P13):

======= E3: PROP. 11:
    Whatsoever increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the power of activity in our body, the idea thereof increases or diminishes, helps or hinders the power of thought in our mind.

Proof.--This proposition is evident from E2P7 or from E2P14.
=======

...which is based in part, as he indicates, on:

======= E2: PROP. 14:
    The human mind is capable of perceiving a great number of things, and is so in proportion as its body is capable of receiving a great number of impressions.

Proof.--The human body (by E2POST3 and E2POST6) is affected in very many ways by external bodies, and is capable in very many ways of affecting external bodies. But (E2P12) the human mind must perceive all that takes place in the human body; the human mind is, therefore, capable of perceiving a great number of things, and is so in proportion, etc. Q.E.D.
=======

...and so when I said above that we mistake for Reality the motion and rest of our extremely complex existing body this is in part what I had in mind. To think a little more about that, consider what he shows a bit further along in Part 2:

======= E2: PROP. 16, Corollary 2:
--It follows, secondly, that the ideas, which we have of external bodies, indicate rather the constitution of our own body than the nature of external bodies. I have amply illustrated this in the Appendix to Part 1.
=======

    And, as to how thinking about these very simple ideas, common to all, such as motion and rest (and how our mind, by conceiving motion and rest simply, sees that it must first have an adequate idea of the Attribute of Extension) can aid us in following along with Spinoza in examining the emotions of our body, notice how he makes use of this in Part 5:

======= E5: PROP. 2:
    If we remove a disturbance of the spirit, or emotion, from the thought of an external cause, and unite it to other thoughts, then will the love or hatred towards that external cause, and also the vacillations of spirit which arise from these emotions, be destroyed....
======= E5: PROP. 3:
    An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof....
------------ Corollary
--An emotion therefore becomes more under our control, and the mind is less passive in respect to it, in proportion as it is more known to us.
======= E5: PROP. 4:
    There is no modification of the body, whereof we cannot form some clear and distinct conception.

Proof.--Properties which are common to all things can only be conceived adequately (E2P38); therefore (E2P12 and E2P13L2 [here he references those things common to all bodies which form the bases of Reason --TNeff]) there is no modification of the body, whereof we cannot form some clear and distinct conception. Q.E.D.
------------- Corollary:
--Hence it follows that there is no emotion, whereof we cannot form some clear and distinct conception.

For an emotion is the idea of a modification of the body (by the general Def. of the Emotions E3DOE), and must therefore (by the preceding Prop.) involve some clear and distinct conception.
=======

    Notice that he has us focus on our own particular body, not on some other body (human or otherwise) which happens to affect our body (remember E2P16C2 above.) And, note too, if it is not already abundantly clear from our own experience, that just because we experience an emotion, that does not mean that the experience itself is a clear conception so just saying or thinking to ourselves; "I feel an emotion" is not what he is referring to here as a "clear and distinct conception."

    So, even without yet coming to know directly the essence of the body under the form of Eternity, which he is leading us towards and will discuss from E5P21 forward, it seems that all of his Reasoning has involved, as he said earlier, those "things common to all" and which we need to think about very deeply and not just repeat the words to win or lose arguments in a "battle" which is actually taking place only in our own imagination.

    I too am thinking about and need to keep constantly reminding myself of such things, lest my imagination resume its hold. By so doing we can "climb", so to speak, further up the staircase of Reason toward the Intuitive Knowledge of God which, it will turn out, is, in our Mind, Eternal (as our Mind is part of the Eternal and Infinite Intellect of God):

====== E5: PROP. 40 Corollary, Note:
--Such are the doctrines which I had purposed to set forth concerning the mind, in so far as it is regarded without relation to the body; whence, as also from E1P21 and other places, it is plain that our mind, in so far as it understands, is an eternal mode of thinking, which is determined by another eternal mode of thinking, and this other by a third, and so on to infinity; so that all taken together at once constitute the eternal and infinite intellect of God.
======

A fellow student,
    Terry