Mind-Body Problem

[Smoogles]

(I am sorry I make so many posts about this, but this is a very interesting and controversial topic; it corresponds to the question of "What does it meant to be human?" and "Is there life after death? i.e. immortality.". This is an extension of my last post I realized was too small to take into account the vastness of this topic.)

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The question is: How can a non-physical entity of the mind control a physical entity as the body? Is there even a mind, or is it just functions of the physical brain?

Mind collectively refers to the aspects of intellect and consciousness manifested as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination; mind is the stream of consciousness. It includes all of the brain's conscious processes. This denotation sometimes includes, in certain contexts, the working of the human unconscious or the conscious thoughts of animals. "Mind" is often used to refer especially to the thought processes of reason.

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There are three main types of people in this argument (and some inbetween):
(The 'boxes' (i.e. substances) are used to illustrate that they place everything in the universe into one, two, or many boxes. Because many believe that it is made up of only a certain, or unlimited amount of substances.)

Monist: Believe the universe and everything else is made up of one basic substance. So in turn believe in two extremes: that there is no mind, it's just functions of the brain(Material Monist ex: most social science professors and their pupils); the other is that there is just mind, reality is not real. (Non-material monist ex: Christian science :lol: ) (They have one box)

Dualist: Believe there are two things that make up the world, and thusly believe that there is mind and body. Descartes and Aristotle were believers in this. (They have two boxes)

Pluralist: Believe that no single one or two things can be pin pointed to be blamed for all creations, rather there are many things. (They have hundreds of boxes)

Behaviorist: Believe that nothing is mind (can be categorized with monist on this topic) but rather it is nothing other than functions of normal animals, and we can witness this by observing our bodies reaction to events. When you scowl, you are angry; frown, sad; eyes wide open mouth ajar, surprised; etc.

(There are many many more that may counter these beliefs or be different. But for now these are the big ticket beliefs of today)

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The downfall to Monist is that they lack the proof to disprove the mind Who is to say, that while useing a bran scanner and witnessing which parts of the brain are working when you are asked "Does your mother love you?" and you see the neuropathway light up, that, that itself is not mind working in correlation to body? Maybe it works with exactitude and perfection, what if the brain is just the toolbox used by the mind to calculate your reaction to things? And how is it impossible to believe that a non-physical thing can influence a physical thing, (you see architects do it all the time) if a physical thing (brain) is believed to influence a non-physical thing such as love, and hate, i.e. complex emotions hard to pin point on the brain. What triggers your brain to release chemicals? How are we aware of our conciousness? All these questions are unanswered (so far) by science. I doubt there will ever be a brain scanner able to answer the question "Are you married" because you cannot look for something like that in a brain, it is a social status not a physical status.

Dualists have a problem with the fact, how does a non-physical thing affect the physical form of the body? Where are the points of interaction. The problem of the Ghost in the Machine. More than enough to sway people away from defending this view.

Pluralist are all over the place, I would like to know their view points fallacies I know little of them I need to research them.

Behaviorist seem to exlude the fact that (excuse me if I am a tad off topic) we experience personal sensations. If you were to tell a behaviorist that you "unintentionally" rode over his cat he would not have anything to say because there is no way to see whether it was intentional or not, only you are aware of this fact. But they have the same problems of that of monists when is comes to mind-brain problem.

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So who do you think is right, why? How do you believe the others to be false? I would like to see how people view themselves as a person and an entity. Is there anyone out there that is dualist and can give valid proof of a "poltergeist" in the machine instead of a ghost? Is there a monist to prove the we are nothing more than just bodies, or just minds? And please if you have other points of view on this subject post them here, give good arguments to them. I would love to see other perspectives on this matter.

[jgweed]

That there is something called the "mind" is perhaps questionable, at least in the ordinary sense we use the term. The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle (1949) should be read before even beginning to think about the subject, as an antidote to this assumption.

[Smoogles]

I have researched this from a previous post you made, I believe.

"According to Ryle, mental processes are merely intelligent acts.1 There are no mental processes that are distinct from intelligent acts. The operations of the mind are not merely represented by intelligent acts, they are the same as those intelligent acts. Thus, acts of learning, remembering, imagining, knowing, or willing are not merely clues to hidden mental processes or to complex sequences of intellectual operations, they are the way in which those mental processes or intellectual operations are defined. Logical propositions are not merely clues to modes of reasoning, they are those modes of reasoning."

"The Concept of Mind (1949) is a critique of the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, and it is a rejection of the theory that mental states are searable from physical states. According to Ryle, the classical theory of mind, as represented by Cartesian ratioanlism, asserts that there is a basic distinction between mind and matter. However, the classical theory makes a basic "category-mistake," because it attempts to analyze the relation betwen "mind" and "body" as if they were terms of the same logical category."

"Ryle admits that his approach to the theory of mind is behavioristic in being opposed to the theory that there are hidden mental processes which are distinct from observable behaviors. His approach is based on the view that actions such as thinking, remembering, feeling, and willing are revealed by modes of behavior or by dispositions to modes of behavior. At the same time, however, he criticizes both Cartesian theory and behaviorist theory for being overly mechanistic."

So in the end doesn't he have the same fallacies as the others? He too makes a 'category-mistake' he doesn't mention, he seems to ride the line between dualist and behaviorist. Can you account for his argument? It seems to me that he believes that correlation is a big theory between mind and brain but how does this correlation happen?

[byquist]

While Ryle gets much accolade for his witty attack upon a "ghost in the machine," it could also lead to the other side of such a contention: that there is no "machine in the ghost," that real substance is Spirit and matter is non-existent.

Jesus, for one, repudiated matter. He didn't even respect the idea of waiting the months required by nature for a seed to yield a harvest--something like, "Look to your fields for they are already ripe for harvest."

Of course much of philosophy despises what Jesus was able to prove by acts, as well as similar acts by folks before Jesus and after, and thus often declares that the Bible is myth or just kids' fairy tales. Still, almost everyone can recall instances in life when the so-called ghost exceeded what the limits that the machine would place on experience.

[Smoogles]

How are we not to know that some day science (which is comming close) will pin point the neuro pathways to which correspond to surprise, irritation, dismay, and happiness? I realize that love and hate are 'complex' emotions, but what if they were some correlation between many emotions to create these, thus we can witness them on an extremely high tech brain scanner? I sympathize with your relgious beliefs, but what if some day everything we really know and feel is just actions of the brain; what if anything we concieve to be alien to the brain is just that... the brain? This is why material monist are becomming so popular between intellectuals, scientists, and professors alike. But in doing so they refer to us as just physical objects, lets say I am holding a pen and I drop it into my hand below, what will happen? Well it fell down and I clasped my hand below to catch it, what is this? It is saying that physical objects are nothing more than subject to external forces, i.e. law of gravity. Is that all we are? Just physical objects subject to change by the environment? The implications of this are enormous! What does it mean to be Human? What ever happened to Free will?! (i.e. determinism)

[blazeofglory]

Science suffers a limitation of its own and it can not be stretched out beyond a limit and pinpoints certain attributes. Science can anatomize or tear apart a body but it fails to define man in whole or entirety in point of fact.

We can liken what we know about or the knowledge of man to a drop of water and what we do not know about is a vast ocean of water. The study of man is a never ending course.

[Smoogles]

Science suffers a limitation of its own and it can not be stretched out beyond a limit and pinpoints certain attributes. Science can anatomize or tear apart a body but it fails to define man in whole or entirety in point of fact.

We can liken what we know about or the knowledge of man to a drop of water and what we do not know about is a vast ocean of water. The study of man is a never ending course.


Okay, well lets take that one drop of water and put it to the test shall we? Way to totally avoid the topic champ.

Now does anyone have any real, probable theories? Is there anyone who knows philosophy, besides opinion and religion? Real philosophy, or do I have to make a dumb thread dominated by God, Religion, etc and wait for fools opinions? I foresee a negative response from this, but please stay on mind-body topic. :crash: Unless everyone agrees with blaze? :sick:

[jgweed]

To say that science, recognising its own limits, does not attempt to proceed beyond these self-defined domains of investigation is to state common knowledge that science is not (for example) poetry or ethics.

Now if what we know about man is but a "drop of water" then to make a further statement that the knowledge of man is actually a "vast ocean" is certainly unwarranted. I don't see how talking about what we do not know furthers a discussion.

[blazeofglory]

Mystery veils everywhere, and the universe is so deep and scientific explorations are still on the surface. We can defy the vastness or limitlessness of this cosmos and any attempt to go beyond is likened to the attempt of a butterfly to touch the fire and will come to its own extinction.

We are simply curious beings, yet our curiosity or imaginative faculty have their own limitations.

[NikolaiI]

We are not the body or the mind, but the soul. If I am in a car, driving, then I might start to associate myself with the car. But I am not the car, I am the driver. Similarly, we are not this body, but the driver-- although, in some cases people are controlled by the senses. If we subordinate our senses to control of the mind, and the mind to the control of the will of the soul, then we are in control.

So the answer to whether we have a soul or not is kind of surprising. We are not a body that has a soul, but a soul that has a body.

[Edit: actually I left one out: intelligence. Lowest is the senses, then the mind, then intelligence, and then the soul.]

And you must forgive Blazeofglory; his English is not the best, so when he tries to coin phrases which he often does, they take a little puzzling out.

[jgweed]

It may be that much confusion has resulted from separating mind and body in thought, and consequently ignoring their existential unity in the individual. We want to think of either as somehow different in nature--- a physical substance and a mental substance in the Cartesian picture, for example---and then ponder how the two can possibly interact in yet another intellectual picture of something called the "self."

[Smoogles]

Hello everyone, it's been a while hasn't it? I just got back from Houston, I was at a National Youth Leadership Forum on medicine, very fascinating. I am glad to be back, anways lets get back on topic. Let's say that one was to have a soul. Would that soul be immortal, as in always has and always will? Remember the church does not mention immortaility rather it leans on the notion that we are entitled to eternal life as in, we have a beginning but no end. How can something like the soul (per say to be immortal) be created by God if it were always to exist? Would this not be contradicting the power of God, as in limiting his power? Another problem with the soul is that if it is seperate from the body then how are people able to recognized loved ones on their death beds if souls were to have vision then isn't that a sense, a physical notion of existence? This just seems to lack luster, if the soul was seperate from the body then it should not have abilities of the physical realm such as senses; so all in all what would describe the soul? How are we aware of its existence and how can you prove it to exist?

[jgweed]

Welcome back.

I think it can be safely said without distorting the facts, that the soul (or mind) is not the same at birth as it is at death. For the mind grows as it interacts with the outside world, much like a snowball will add size as it rolls downhill.
Again, it seems safe to say that the personality also changes during life---John at ten was the not same John at 21 or the same John at 55 because of the formative nature of experiences (perhaps selective in nature). One can also say the same about the body.

If body and soul are, at least in the sense I have presented, a process or a becoming, then it becomes difficult to point to a particular slice in time that "is" the soul or body that is supposed by some religions to be immortal, so perhaps they posit some "additional entity" that is apart from both the body (and sense-impressions) and the mind, but that we cannot understand or know, to serve the purpose.
[I would dare suggest that if heaven were populated with souls as they were at the end of life, few people would want to dwell therein, a fewer want to pay priests the entry fee.]

The "problem of mind" is difficult enough without introducing a religious conception of the "immortal soul."
Cheers,
John

[Taliesin]

I think that I support the first category- the material monists' one. It seems to be the most credible to me.



But in doing so they refer to us as just physical objects, lets say I am holding a pen and I drop it into my hand below, what will happen? Well it fell down and I clasped my hand below to catch it, what is this? It is saying that physical objects are nothing more than subject to external forces, i.e. law of gravity. Is that all we are? Just physical objects subject to change by the environment? The implications of this are enormous! What does it mean to be Human? What ever happened to Free will?! (i.e. determinism)

Well, first of all, the human brain is a very, very, very, very, very complex system. And that complexity is, by definition, impossible to grasp. (if it were understandable, we wouldn't be intelligent enough to understand it) I wouldn't call that "just". I don't think that because human mind is so interesting, it has to have some special "other" in it which makes it so special. I think that this amazingness can come just from the build of our neural systems.
"What does it mean to be Human" has always been an important philosophical question, I believe.
Concerning free will and determinism - first, the Copenhagen school of quantum physics rather did away with determinism. You can disbelieve that interpretation, though, if you don't think it is true. Secondly, I view free will in a rather pragmatic manner - it seems to be free and there is no-one who can see the future (at least now there isn't anyone who can). The true nature of future is rather a complicated one so let us leave that matter aside.
Concerning the topic of human mind, I think that Douglas Hofstadters book "Gödel, Escher, Bach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%2C_Escher%2C_Bach): an Eternal Golden Braid" deals very well with the problem. I would recommend it.(though I hate it when people say: "read this book" instead of an argument. But still.)

[DooRag]

Its simple - you learn - you act...there is no inner process in between. Your brain is a computer. Granted, a very complicated one, but it still has absolutely no say regarding meaning, feeling, or any expression. Its all external.