...Dualism claims that reality is composed by the substances body and mind, whereas the body belongs to the physical world and the mind to the nonphysical world. Rene Descartes was a relevant defender of substance dualism, from his point of view, the body has a presence in the material space, meaning it exist and occupies the physical world while our thoughts and feelings exist in our mind and are not perceivable in the material or physical world. For Descartes, this two substances, material and immaterial "interact with each other at some point in the body", but are distinct objects because they have different properties. John Searle, on the side, recognizes the substance dualism from the supervenience theory, - even if sometimes he claims...
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...INTRODUCTION Is our mind a physical entity, something that is perpetually attached to our brain, or is it a separate substance of dark matter that has yet to be fully explored? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the quoted definition of the mind states that it is “The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons; or, the organized conscious and unconscious adaptive mental activity of an organism. In other words, the human mind is an intricate series of a persons’ past, present, and future. When scrutinizing the theory of the mind, substance dualism plays a large role in that it is “the concept that our mind is more than just our brain—it entails that our mind has a non-material,...
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...There is a major debate in philosophy called the mind and body debate. This is the debate about what gives us our personal identity as to whether it is our minds, our bodies or whether it is both. A number of philosophers have commented on the mind and body debate. These are dualists, monists and materialists all of which have theories explaining what gives us our personal identity. Dualists believe that the mind and body are separate, monists believe that the mind and body are one but can be separated and materialism is the view that there is no such thing as a mind or a soul and that when we die we die. Philosophers such as Plato and Descartes are dualists. In this dualist argument, Plato presents four arguments for the immortality of the soul which are cyclical – everything comes into existence from its opposite which sets up the cycle of birth and death, recollection- Plato believed that the knowledge we acquire is not learnt but remembered or recollected. Plato believed that the soul existed in a realm of forms before coming into the body, where it acquires this knowledge. As evidence of this he cites the slave boy who has no education but can grasp complex mathematical concepts just like the film ‘Good will hunting’, Affinity – Plato believed that the body has an affinity with the earth and that the soul has the affinity with the eternal real of forms. Because the soul is composite, at death it is dispersed at death and so it returns to the real of form to which it has...
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...Distinction One of the deepest and most lasting legacies of Descartes’ philosophy is his thesis that mind and body are really distinct–a thesis now called “mind-body dualism.” He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (that is, a thinking, non-extended thing) is completely different from that of the body (that is, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it is possible for one to exist without the other. This argument gives rise to the famous problem of mind-body causal interaction still debated today: how can the mind cause some of our bodily limbs to move (for example, raising one’s hand to ask a question), and how can the body’s sense organs cause sensations in the mind when their natures are completely different? This article examines these issues as well as Descartes’ own response to this problem through his brief remarks on how the mind is united with the body to form a human being. This will show how these issues arise because of a misconception about Descartes’ theory of mind-body union, and how the correct conception of their union avoids this version of the problem. The article begins with an examination of the term “real distinction” and of Descartes’ probable motivations for maintaining his dualist thesis. Table of Contents 1. What is a Real Distinction? 2. Why a Real Distinction? 1. The Religious Motivation 2. The Scientific Motivation 3. The Real Distinction Argument 3. The First Version ...
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...Question No. 1 Answer: John Searle has attempted to stake out a center position in the middle of materialism and property dualism, which he calls biological naturalism. John Searle fundamentally rejects dualism and contends that the conventional mind-body issue has a 'basic arrangement': mental wonders are both brought on by biological procedures in the brain and are themselves components of the brain. All the more accurately, mental states and occasions are macro-properties of neurons similarly that solidity and liquidity are macro-properties of molecules. Searle is likewise right to deny the name property-dualism on the off chance that it conveys ramifications of backing for specific principles of reflection, advantaged access, or internal...
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...assess dualism as a theory of the relation of mind and body. Human beings are material objects. However, unlike other material objects (e.g. non-living things) humans have the ability to form judgements and reason their existence. Meaning to say that, human beings have 'minds'. In general, humans are characterised as having both a mind and body. By definition, mind is referred to the mental processes, thought and consciousness whereas body is referred to the physical aspects of the brain-neurons and how the brain is structured. This is known as dualism. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental (mind) and the physical (body) are both real or exist, but both of them are different kinds of thing. The theory of mind-body dualism is presented by Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who holds that both mind and body are substances, in which the body is a material substance as it is extended in space whereas the mind is an unextended in space, and so called spiritual substance. According to Descartes, he believed that mind and body actually can interact through the pineal gland in the brain. In Descartes’s first principle of philosophy, “I think, therefore I am”, makes mind more certain than matter. It also showed that the mind which is a thinking thing can exist apart from its extended body. Hence, Descartes said that the mind is a substance that is different from the body (a substance whose essence is thought). This became known as “Substance Dualism” (view...
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...Substance Dualism vs. Materialism At the center of the debate over human nature, the existence of free will, and the validity of science are two opposing viewpoints: materialism and dualism. Dualism is the belief that a person is made up of two kinds of substances: physical matter and above all else, an immaterial force known as the mind, or soul. Materialism refutes dualism, asserting that man and matter are inseparable, and that there is no mysterious, supernatural force directing our actions. Both viewpoints were derived in an attempt to place philosophy on firmer, more scientific ground. The arguments of Descartes and Hobbes for substance dualism and materialism, respectively, are representative of this debate. Although materialism and dualism have their own internal problems and flaws, I will argue that many of the objections that have been leveled against materialism can be met and that, on the whole, materialism is a much more plausible theory than dualism. The Greek philosopher Socrates believed that nothing could be certain without divine knowledge, which no man possesses. However, René Descartes, a 16th century French philosopher believed that some things could be determined to be certain as long as they were deduced through the proper methods. This method, known as the method of doubt, led Descartes to the foundational beliefs that became the basis for Substance Dualism. Simply put, Substance Dualism is the belief that there are two types of substances:...
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...FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OYE-EKITI, EKITI STATE, NIGERIA. A TERM PAPER TITLE:- “THE ESSENCE/SUBSTANCE OF MAN” BY FACULTY: SCIENCE DEPARTMENT: MICROBIOLOGY COURSE TITLE: PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC COURSE CODE: GST 205 CONTENT * Introduction * What is man * Philosophically * Scientifically * The essence and substance of man * What constitute man * Man as a dualist * Man as a monad * Man as a socialist * Man as a spiritual entity * Man as a physical entity * Intrinsic characteristics that man have in common * Illustration of the mental essence(when man is abnormal is he still half or full) INTRODUCTION The essence of man is the constituent of man which goes beyond his body alone but extends to his mind, soul, spirit and other attributes of man. But we cannot talk about the essence of man without the existence of man because without an existence of man, man’s essence is of no use and nothing to talk about. This brings about the proposition ‘existence precedes essence’. The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence (the nature) of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence (the mere fact of its being). To existentialists, human beings—through their consciousness—create their own values and determine a meaning for their life because the human being does not possess any inherent identity or value. By posing the acts that constitute...
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...Social Sciences and Humanities prof. Coleridge Chris Final essay “Brain vs Mind” [pic] Alessandro Acquaviva E060478 INDEX The Mind-Brain Problem 3 Background of the problem 4 Evaluating the three proposed solutions 6 Weak Dualism 7 Strong Dualism 9 The relevance of Parapsychology 11 Conclusions 12 The Mind-Brain Problem The mind-brain problem raises the question as to whether the mind is no more than the idle side-effect of our brain processes or whether the mind can, in some degree, influence behaviour. Here we rehearse the arguments on both sides plus some recent attempts to eliminate mind altogether. However contentious, the philosophical problem, as distinct from the physiological problem, can be stated quite simply as follows: What, essentially, is the relationship between events in the brain and those private, subjective experiences that together constitute our inner mental life? We need not assume here that consciousness is synonymous with mind - consciousness may well be no more than just one aspect of mind - but, with respect to the problem at issue, it is the existence of consciousness that is critical. Stated thus, the problem admits of only three basic answers: 1) Events in the brain, operating in accordance with the laws of physics, determine completely both our behaviour and our subjective experiences. 2) Mental events may be elicited by events in the brain or they may, in turn, elicit brain events and so influence...
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...Is The Mind and The Body Separate Elements? Descartes proposed that body (physical) and mind (spiritual) are separate entities (dualism). Empiricists propose that the mind is a physical property of the brain. Similarly, some philosophers think that selfawareness is a sensation perceived by the brain like any other of our physical senses. In chapter 4, the discussion is about whether the mind and body are two separate entities. In Chapter 4 the story, I Sing The Body Electric, by Walt Whitman, he male is not less “ T the soul nor more ” (Kass, p.211). Whitman believed that the mind and the body were one unit. In the story,hat the body knows, W by Chrita Banerjee Divakaruni. Aparna realizes that the mental aspect of things is in fact in conjunction with the body. Aparna believes that the body knows one thing and the mind knows another but they work in conjunction. Aparna develops a crush on her doctor which bring her back to health. Even though that there is an actual difference between the mind and the body they do work together. Some stories throughout the text conclude that the mind and the body are completely separate from each other, but we often wonder if machinery could take over our existence. In this article, we determine from Antonio Regalado that he Brain is not computable. The debate is whether or not the brain can reproduced, for example like a lung or a kidney has. Some individuals believe that the brain can ...
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...Materialism: The view that only the material world (matter) is truly real, and that all processes and realities observed in the universe can be explained by reducing them down to their most basic scientific components, e.g., atoms, molecules Dualism: The view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter. Eliminative Materialism: Eliminative materialism is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Support Reductive Materialism Michael Tye * Proposes that understanding something is not the same as knowing something. * “Understanding what something is is not the same as knowing what it is like to experience that thing.” * The reductive materialist claims that after an adequate explanation of the reduction, the dualist will see that there is a sense in which the mental state is the material state. * Reductive materialism holds that we do have “mental state”, which are the actual experiences themselves, the sensations that are presented to us, whether they be sights, sounds, feelings, tactile sensations, or the woman in red. Dualism The mental state is not identical to the brain state. Paul Churchland * Proposes that...
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...objects materiality and soul divinity, the modern perception of the same correlation was emphasized by Descartes as body/mind problem. In the present paper, the essence of the problem is outlined in the context of one of the modern philosophies of mind, meaning physicalism. The main aims of this essay is to identify the corner stone of physicalist concept, its main supporting and opposing arguments, and distinguish which position is the strongest one and understand the reason why. Key words: physicalism, body/mind problem, knowledge, exclusion, consciousness. What is mind? In the history of human thought, there were various dilemmas which the brightest minds of their times were trying to solve and which remained enigmas until our times. The mind/body problem is one of those issues. While, in times of Aristotle and Plato, it was named differently and explained through the objects materiality and soul divinity, the modern perception of the same correlation was shaped by Descartes as body/mind problem. In the present paper, the essence of the problem is explained in the context of one of the modern philosophies of mind, meaning physicalism. The main aims of this essay is to identify the corner stone of physicalist concept, its main supporting and opposing arguments, and distinguish which argument is the strongest and why. First of all, it is worth to identify what Descartes meant by body/mind problem. According to his argument, mental phenomena or results of mind activity are...
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...Contemporary theories in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind lend support for the materialist position regarding the mind-body problem. A few of these theories: naturalism, and behaviourism form the basis of why I am a materialist. Dualist approaches offer counter-arguments to Materialism, such as Spiritualism and Interactionism but both empirically fall short. Current research materialistically concludes that mental states are nothing but physical states. As a materialist I would say: There are no souls, the mind is just the brain, everything can by expressed or explained physically. The naturalist in me would more thoroughly assert that nothing exists beyond the natural world, that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe. That the changing universe at every stage is a product of these laws and this is what forms the basis of my material beliefs. I do not believe in the supernatural, or souls. I believe that biology, neurology and psychology fulfill the soul's supposed function and that the universe developed naturally, without any "creator". inversely, a popular rebuttal to Naturalism is Spiritualism. The Spiritualist would assert we do indeed have souls, and that when we die our soul’s survive the death’s of our bodies by ascending into a spirit existence. While this can be argued for theoretically and rationally, there is no empirical evidence to support such a belief. That leads me to doubt in the validity of...
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...Materialism is a belief in matter, whereas dualism is not its opposite and "vs" has no relevance or meaing because materialism cannot vs dualism. Those who are deprived of the spiritual insights undersand dualism in a lower pedestal than the meaning it has or indicates. Dualism is a state of being or existence in two seemingly opposite entities. Dvaita (dualistic) as clearly defined in Sankhya Philosophy as opposed to Advaita (non-dualistic) monism as clearly defined by Adi Shri Shankaracharya. Though Plato did believe in Dualism and reached a stage of defining the fifth element Ether but he could not grasp the spiritual essense of it completely due to lack of spiritual progress in life. That pertains to matter is materialism. That pertains to Spirit is spiritualism. Spirit and matter are dual states of existence, like night and day, black and white, good and evil and all such seemingly opposites. But, the fact remains that the seemingly opposites cannot exist in isolation from the source and remains within or connected to the source and therefore everything in the world is one unit of undifferentiated Brahman or Sat Chit Ananda (Truth(Existance), Consciousness and Bliss). If the cosmos is a one Monistic Unit of Undifferentiated Brahman, due to the illusion of the senses, the undifferentiated brahman is seen by human beings as differentiated and having separate entitties. Here the division begins, the pattern of two is dualism, then the pattern of three, the pattern of four and...
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...Epiphenomenalism and Physicalism Physicalism, which is often, in contemporary philosophy interchangeably called Materialism, asserts that the physical world, and everything in it conforms to a certain condition, that of being Physical, either as a causal force or as material. The main argument against Physicalism, Jackson’s argument claims that there exists a contradiction between the existence of Qualia (The felt qualities of experience) and Physicalism. Jackson’s argument is given in the form of a thought experiment in which Mary, a neuroscientist, isolated in a black and white room is given all of the physical facts regarding other people, and so must therefore know everything there is to know about other people. However, it is evident in the second premise that because she learns something new about these people upon being released, she must not have known everything there is to know, though the facts she understood hold true, her experience yields new understanding, and as such falsify the first premise. The conclusion to be reached from this argument is that “There are truths about other people (and herself) that escape the physicalist story.”(Stoljar) The Ability Reply, well summarized by David Lewis, distinguishes knowing-that, that is, knowledge of facts, from knowing-how, which would be the ability to imagine, remember, and process in other ways. He identifies knowledge of qualitative experience with specific abilities. In particular, the ability for recall of a specific...
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