René Descartes (Renatus Cartesius) - 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650 - was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer. "Descartes in his Passions of the Soul and The Description of the Human Body suggested that the body works like a machine, that it has material properties. The mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described as a nonmaterial and does not follow the laws of nature. " (Wikipedia) "In philosophy of mind, dualism is the assumption that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical,[1] or that the mind and body are not identical." (Wikipedia)