does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?

to answer this question, we must first decide whether to take a materialistic or a dualistic view of the soul/body partnership. plato, a dualist, believed that the soul was literally trapped in the body and came from the world of the forms, rendering new knowledge not learning, as such, but simply recalling memories from the world of the forms. aristotle, plato’s most renowned student, refuted this, saying that the soul and the body were like an imprint in wax - inseperable and meaningless without the other. he believed that the soul was made up of faculties, and that the faculty of knowledge and reason was what set humans apart from plants and animals. hick, a more modern monist, was the leader of an idea called ‘replica theory’, which draws many parallels with the christian idea of bodily resurrection. the teachings in the bible are unclear about the soul, sometimes taking a monist view and at other times seeming positively dualistic. concepts such as purgatory point to a clear divide between body and mind, whereas the rising of jesus christ puts emphasis on the idea that the physical body of jesus was resurrected, not just his soul. different ideas about the soul lead to conflicting representations of the afterlife, and consequently we must ask questions about whether god is just, and indeed what it means to be just. is heaven a reward or merely the minimum standard for good human behaviour? should a truly omnibenevolent god send people to hell, and does acting in fear of hell make for good acts or just a swarm of frightened and righteous legalists?

or in other words

i dunno.

tomorrow i want to get extremely drunk extremely fast. haven’t yet decided whether to do so before, during or after my exam.

I HAVE FINISHED MY EXAMS there is joy in the world once again. now is the time for victory gin and cigarettes. i am jubilant for the jubilee and a happy weekend of celebrating our failure to successfully smash the monarchy.

all of their other item descriptions are equally brilliant. i might buy a lace playsuit from them. apparently ‘its’ got an elasticated waist and pockets to keep various nick-nacks in like penny sweets or cans of tuna.’