History, theme 3

The mind-body problem

a philosophical issue about the relationship between the mind and the body

quale (or qualia = plural)

the conscious experience(s) humans have

Descartes

discovered the mind-body problem

Animal Spirits

fine streams of air that inflate our muscles, come from the pineal gland (where the soul is) = again not true because for something to be in space it must be physical, so therefore the soul is again physical

dualism

the claim that the mind and body are 2 separate and very different things (mind is not part of nature) —> they can exist without one another

Substance dualism

the view that the mind and body are distinct (or substances), they can exist independent of each other

substances

independently existing things

interactionist substance dualism

the 2 substances (mind and body) exist and can interact with each other

property dualism

the mind and the body are one substance with 2 properties, physical and non-physical —> the mind is technically non ‘non-physical’ but does have some non-physical properties

parallelism / noninteractionists dualism

the mind and body are distinct and do not interact with each other —> they are just synchronized (mind want coffee, body reaches out for it —> because the body also wants coffee not because the mind and the body are interacting)

occasionalism

parallelism is true —> physical events in the body are God’s doing, all of our actions are actions whose motive or moving power is God.

epiphenomenalism (form of dualism)

physical events cause mental events but not the other way around

epiphenomena

events of the mind

basic phenomena

events of the physical world

reversed epiphenomenalism

mental events cause physical events (no one has ever believed in this one)

emergentism

the physical is dominant and the mental is sort of a by-product (the mind and body correlate a bit more closely than in epiphenomenalism)

physicalism

everything that exists is physical, so if the mind exists its physical

behaviorism

mental is behavioral, mind is behavior. So the mind is the body.

4 different types of behaviorists:

• there is no mind, just behavior (problem; we humans have thoughts and feelings)

• we should not study the mind because we cannot observe it (problem: goes against psychology as a science)

• the mind is not interesting nor important, should be replaced by studying behavior instead

• the mind is behavior (if someone says they are tired, they basically say that they want to lie down and close their eyes, which is behavior)

the identity theory

the mind and the brain are the same, mental states are physical brain states (your thoughts and feelings are just neural events happening in your brain) Mind = Brain

central-state materialism

The mind is the brain

functionalism (Hilary Putnam)

what matters is not what something is made of but what it does (the function) —> mental states are functional states, not physical ones

the multiple realizability thesis

the idea that one mental state can be realized in multiple and very different ways

eliminativism (eliminative materialism)

mental concepts and terms cannot be reduced to scientific physiological ones

idealism

everything is spiritual or mental, so the body is nonphysical (antiphysicalist)

phenomenalism

physical objects do not exist independently of our sensory experience of them (physical objects are just collections of sensory experiences (sight, sounds, smell etc)

the double aspect theory (Spinoza)

there is only one substance or real thing in the universe, but it can be viewed under 2 complementary aspects:

• aspect of thought

• aspect of extension

theory works by denying that the body and mind interact

aspect of thought

the human mind

aspect of extension

the human body