the invisible postman

Chesterton’s invisible postman is a story in which a postman commits a murder inside a house whilst four people guard the house. The people did not think that the postman committed the murder due to his frequent visits to the house. The people assumed that he was just doing his job. Damasio uses this story to analogise his point on the mind-body problem. He states that scientists separate the mind from the body, and study the two separately, to which he greatly disagrees. Damasio takes a monistic approach to this problem which opposes the dualistic approach the scientists take. Monism is where the mind and body are apart of a whole, two sides of the same coin. The mind and brain are on one side and the body-proper is on the other. An example Damasio gives which proves that the two are part of a whole is nausea. Nausea, according to Damasio is an internal image. To summarise, Damasio compares the postman to the position scientists take when it comes to the body. Both are being ignored even though they are acknowledged and play an important role in the stories.