** I was given permission by my student to retell the following story.
So in my intro to philosophy course at LIU we just finished wrappng up personal identity. For a few sections we compared physicalism (which says that we are only a body) and dualism (which believes we are made up of a body and soul/mind). After talking about physicalism for one class, we then turned to the dualist, Descartes. Descartes is the guy whose famous for saying, “I think, therefore I am”. Well, after presenting several of his arguments for dualism, I then had my students critique his argument. And this is where it gets interesting.
STUDENT: “Professor. It is a fact that the body and the mind are two different things. If it wasn’t, why would R-Kelly say, “My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me Yeeees”. He said it because he knows that the two are two separate entities. See, that proves that the mind and body is separate. Its like getting a piece of cake. Your mind knows better, but your body wants it.”
There you have it folks. Who knew a 1994 R-kelly lyric would be used to support Cartesian Dualism in 2013.