Mind Body Problem

What is the problem? 

Philosophers have found the relationship between the mind and the body to be problematic. Humans have both a body and a mind. It is not difficult to describe bodies as they all have physical properties similar to any physical object, human bodies are similar to complex machines. However when we try to describe our minds as it doesn’t have any physical attributes, describing it as a “grey organic mass” would be describing the brain but not the mind. However, we can describe our minds using our mental states. 

The mind allows us to: 

• To perceive, small and touch the world 

• To have self awareness

• To have dreams and hopes

• To feel emotions 

• To store and retrieve memories 

• To reason about the world 

• To communicate with others 

The human mind and bodies are often connected to each other. Physical (like a cut on the finger) can product mental states (like pain). Mental states like feeling embarrassed can product physical states like blushing. 

Substance dualism

Descartes theory 

From his famous quote “Dictum cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). He developed a theory of mind as an immaterial, nonextended substance that engages in various activities or undergoes various states such as rational thought, imagining, feeling and willing. 

Proof 1 

Descartes argument from doubt 

1. I can doubt that my body exists 

2. I cannot doubt that I exist 

3. Therefore - I (my mind - ‘I am a thinking thing’) must be distinct (separate) from my body. 

Proof 2

Arguement from indivisibility 

1. The body is divisible into parts 

2. The mind is not divisible into parts

3. Therefore, my mind is different from my body 

Proof 3 

The mind can exist independently for the argument from irreducibility 

1. If substance daulism is false, then my mind cannot exist independently from my body 

2. My mind can exist independently from my body 

3. Therefore substance dualism is true

The three main physicalist theories of the mind 

Behaviourism 

Behaviourism, which translates to “mental states” defines a tendency to behave in a certain way. Our emotions or sensations are learned responses to the stimuli of the world. And this has nothing to do with mental states. 

• Gilbert Ryle uses conditional statements to do this. Eg. A person is thirsty, if there is water available, then that person would drink water. 

• In relation to the Mind and Body debate: the idea that the mind is redundant and that there is only the body. 

Three Parts to Behaviourism

• Psychological behaviourism 

  • Seek statements that can be verified, Psychological behaviour can be verified through observation. 

  • Focuses on how organisms form association (cause and effect relationships) in the world in response to stimuli - the environment and how this is reinforced

  • Disregards mental activities 

• Logical/Analytical behaviourism 

  • The idea is that mental states are actually behavioural tendencies. For example, to believe in something (like the time of your appointment) is a tendency, and it has nothing to do with mental substance. 

  • But cause and effect are distinct, just because you know when the appointment is, doesn’t mean it will be the cause of your arrival. 

  • Example. Mental states like “John loves Lucy” cannot be determined whether it is true or false but behaviour can like “John hugs Lucy and tell her he loves her” 

• Methodological behaviourism 

  • Mental states do not add to the understanding of behaviourism in organisms. It is a private entity. Making it unsuitable for empirical study 

  • Seeks to predict the response based on the stimuli, or when given the reaction. To predict the stimulus that has given rise to it. 

Criticism to behaviourism 

• People don’t always respond to their behaviours physically

• Whatever I’m lazy 

Functionalism 

Another theory of the nature of mental states, associated with the ontological and metaphysical theory. Instead of focusing on the materialistic aspect of the mind, for example, what it is made of, it focuses on its function (in the terms of inputs and outputs) 

• For example, when getting injured, the role of the mind is feel pain. This condition can only be met by creatures of internal states, where the role of their minds is to feel emotions. 

• Similar to the relationship between a robot and a programmer,  a computer may not have a nervous system but if the programmer programmed the robot to run away from fear, then that is exactly what they will. This analogy can be applied to humans. 

• Materialistic Solution to the mind and body problem  

  • Some aspects of the mental state could be associated to the physical state

• Supports the idea that the mental causation is heavily under the physical causation

• Consciousness and the mind cannot be explained by the non physical matter as the mind is essentially programmed

• The mind can be replicated with AI. 

Identity Theory

The mind is identical to the states and processes of the brain, experiences are brain processes not correlation. One’s identity is not qualitative but quantitative so it has no relation to the personal identity. These brain processes are also referred to “Qualia” 

Another name for identity theory is reductive materialism, taht our mental states are just our brain states. 

The relation to the mind and body problem 

• The mind is part of the physical body, meaning that “mental states” are the same as “brain states”. A more materislistic approach as well, as there are more “laws” used to define the mind 

The Qualia

Clarence Lrving Lewis defined qualia as properties of sense - data themselves, intrinsic non-representational properties. However, this is not the same as just properties, For example, something like being blue is not same as someone experiencing blue. More personal approach. We might not all experience the same type of blue. 

Daniel Dennett’s four properties of qualia 

• Ineffable - cannot be communicated or apprehended by any means other than direct experiences 

• Intrinsic - Non relational properties, do not change depending on the experience’s relation to other things. 

• Private - All interpersonal comparisons of qualias are systematically impossible 

• Directly or immediately reprehensible by consciousness - to experience a quale is to know one experience a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale 
  

Descartes conceivability argument 

• I have a clear idea of my mind as a thinking thing that is not extended in space 

• I have a clear idea of my body as a non-thinking thing that is extended in space. 

• Anything I conceive clear is something that god could create 

• So it is possible for mind and body to exist independently of each other 

Responses

Mind without body is inconceivable: 

• Behaviourism states that to have mental states is to have behavioural dispositions, which is to be disposed to move your body in certain ways 

• This can’t be done without a body 

• So mind without a body is inconceivable 

The things that are conceivable may not be physically possible: 

• Just because something is logically possible (meaning that it doesn’t involve a logical contradiction) doesn’t mean it is physically possible 

• For example, just because jumping onto the moon from Earth might be physically impossible but there is no logical contradiction in this idea. 

• Similarly it is logically possible for a mind to exist independently of a body, this doesn’t automatically mean such a thing is physically possible. 

Masked man fallacy 

• Inference to Descartes's argument is that: 

  • I conceive of Batman as a caped crusader

  • I conceive of Bruce Wayne as a billionaire who is not a caped crusader 

  • Therefore Batman is not Bruce Wayne. 

• Idea that things that are conceivable tells us nothing about how things are in reality 

• Just because you have an idea that the mind and body are separate things, this doesn’t mean they are separate things. 

Descartes’s Divisibility argument 

• My body is divisible 

• My is not divisible 

• Therefore my mind and body are separate things 

Responses

• The mind is divisible 

  • In cases of mental illness, a mind would be able to literally be divided, for example, someone with a personality disorder.

  • Another example is for a person who has literally had their brain cut in half. A corpus callosotomy is a surgical procedure for epilepsy where the main connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain is severed. 

• Not everything that is physical is divisible 

  • Mind could be just be an invisible type of physical substance 

  • Physical bodies like the limbs are definitely divisible but if you keep dividing it, you might eventually reach a point where you cannot divide it any further as it would just be left with lots of atoms or reach a form of physical substance that is indivisible 

  • Descartes doesn’t prove that the mind isn’t indivisible

  • Descartes doesn’t prove that the body is divisible. 

Problems for Substance Dualism 

The problem of other minds 

The question of what kind of evidence are available to prove that the mind exists within other people, because if substance dualism is true and the mind and body are actually two separate pieces, then it’s possible that some people are existing without a mind. 

Mill’s argument from analogy 

English philosopher John Stuart Mill responds to this with an analogy between his own mind and the minds of others. 

1. I have a mind 

2. My mind causes my behaviour 

3. Other people have bodies and behave similarly to me in similar situations 

4. By analogy, their behaviour has the same type of cause as my behaviour: a mind 

5. Therefore, other people have minds 

However, this theory can’t be applied to everyone as it’s the same thing as saying “that dog has three legs so all dogs have three legs” 

Other minds are the best explanation 

Another response accepts that we can’t observe or prove the existence of minds, but says we should believe in their existence anyway since it is the best explanation. One reason why is due to their explanatory and predictive power, if other people have minds, it would make sense why they behave the way that they do. 

Causal interaction 

• How mental things can casually interact with physical things when they are supposed to be two separate things 

• For example: If I’m feeling hungry (mental state) it might caus eme to move my body (physical thing to the fridge to get food. 

• How does information of a non physical thing transfer over tinto the physical world and cause things to happen? 

The conceptual interaction problem 

The objection proof was created by Descartes’ own student, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia: 

1. Physical things only move if they are pushed 

2. Only something that is physical and can touch the thing that is moved can exert such e force 

3. But the mind is not physical, so it can’t touch the body

4. Therefore , the mind cannot move the body. 

4 is definitely wrong so there something else in the argument that made this completely wrong, the most likely one is 3 which implies that the mind is actually physical. 

The empirical interaction problem 

Another time lol 

Property dualism

Presents the idea that there is that some minds have non-physical properties. Its not saying that the mind is completely non physical but this is different from physicalism in tha property dualist believe a complete description of the physical universe would not be a complete description of the entire universe, they believe that a complete description if the universe would miss out qualia. 

According to property dualism, it is possible fo rtow physically identical things to be different in some way. More specifically, property dualism states that it´s possible that two physically identical things could have different mental properties ‘ different qualia 

Supervenience 

The relationship between two kinds of thing. If something supervenes on something else, then it in dependant on that thing. 

David Chalmers: The Zombie Arguement 

A philosophical zombie is a person who is physically and functionally identical to an ordinary human except they don’t have any qualia. Such zombies are conceivable. Similar to Descartes conceivability argument: 

• Philosophical zombies are conceivable 

• If philosophical zombies are conceivable then philosophical zombies are metaphysically possible 

• If philosophical zombies are metaphysically possible then qualia are non physical 

• If qualia are non physical then property dualism is true 

• Therefore property dualism is true. 

Responses to the Zombie Arguement 

• Zombies are not conceivable 

• Zombies are not (metaphysically possible) 

Problems with property dualism

Introspective self knowledge

The idea of asking: How do we know about our own mental states? 

• If epiphenoma=enalism is true, qualia have no causal effects 

• If qualia have no causal effects, then knowledge of mental states is impossible 

• But knowledge of mental states is possible (e.g. I can know “I am in pain”) 

• So, epiphenomenalism must be false 

The phenomenology of mental life 

In addition to causing knowledg , tehe aualia can also cause other things. For example if someone feels pain, this may cause them to feel sad. But if epiphenomanalism is correct, then the qualia have no causal powers. But qualia obviously do cause other mental states so epiphenonmenalism must be false. 

Evolution

Evolution is that genetic mutations occur randomly, these genes often give beefit for survival. For example, long necks causes giraffes not to die of stravation. The causal effects of long necks genes clearly explain why giraffes have long necks. 

But if epiphenomenalism is true then there would be no evolutionary benefit to have qualia because epiphenomenal qualia doesn’t have any any causal effect. 

So if the minds are the product of evolution, it would suggest that epiphenomenalism is false: qualia does have soem useful casual role, otherwise we wouldn’t have evolved it. 

Monism (not that important lol) 

There are two types of Monism 

Materialism 

Materialism is the belief that nothing exists apart from the material world (ie. physical matter like the brain). Materialist psychologist generally agree that consciousness (the mind) is the function of the brain

Mental processes can be identified with purely physical processes in the central nervous system, and human beings are just complicated physiological organisms, no more than that. 

Phenomenalism 

Also known as subjective idealism, believes that physical objects and events are reducible to mental objects, propeties and events. Ultimately, only mental objects like the mind exist. Irish philosopher Bishop berkeley claimed that we think of our body as merely the perception if the mind.