THE MIND- BODY PROBLEM

The Mind

- The mental aspect consists of consciousness.

What is consciousness?

It is a type of mental state which involves thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams and self-awareness.

e.g. Sensation of the color red

Consciousness

• How did consciousness come to be?

God gave it :) The elementary particles of the

Big Bang made us so. Indians believed it was connected

to the existence of the spiritual.

Consciousness

Descartes believed that consciousness was an ‘observer in the head’, a higher function seperate from the workings of the physical brain.

‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ Descartes

‘Consciousness is axiomatic.’ You can not deny your mind because the act of denying your mind requires your mind. Consciousness doesnt rest upon anything to be valid.

The Physical Aspect

What is the Mind- Body problem?

• The mind- body problem is simply the question of how the mind and body are connected to each other. We believe they are connected somehow.

Physical events may affect mental state• E.g. Drinking too much Mental states may affect physical• E.g. Thinking of raising an arm

Mind over matter... Astral projection

Traditional solutions to the mind- body problem:

1.Monism

2.Dualism

3.Pluralism

4.Psychogeny

MONISM

• Reality,whatever it is, is all one piece.

• Material and nonmaterial parts cannot be seperated.

• Nothing is foreign.• Unity of knowledge.• Conflict between

monists.• Monism in religious

and spiritual systems.

                                       

                                                       

                    Hinduism Buddhism Islam

Judaism Christianity

Oppositional forms of monism

• MATERIALISM :Matter is important.Only material and

physical things.Reference of MatterThe body exists not

the mind.

History of Materialism

• Axial Age• In ancient Idian

philosophy, it developed around 600 BCE by Ajita Kesakambali,Payasi & Kanada.

• Thales, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus.

• The poem of Lucretius.

European enlightment

• Thomas Hobbes & Pierre Gassendi

• Denis Didorit, Ludwig Feuebarch & John “Walking” Stewart

                                              

Pierre Gassendi

Thomas Hobbes

Karl Marx & Friederich Engels

                   

The idea of Social metarialism

• IDEALISM :Reality based on mind or ideas.Reality is inseperable from mind,consciousness or

perception.contrasted with materialism

• History of Idealism Plato Kant Hegel Berkeley Royce

                     

PLATO

• EPIPHENOMENALISMKnown as Type-E dualismMental events are caused by or a by

product physical events.One way interaction.The body makes things happen.

MIND is a byproduct of BODY

HISTORY OF EPIPHENOMALISM

• Post-Cartesian • Shadworth Hodgson:First

formulation of epiphenomalism.

• Thomas Huxley:Locomotive

• Frank Jackson: Mary’s room

                                    

Thomas Huxley

                                      

DUALISM11/03/08

3 positions of dualismInteractionism

Psychophsical Parallelism

Emergentism (Epiphenomenalism)

11/03/08

InteractionismPOSITION: Mental states influence each

other and bodily events, and vice versa.

PROBLEMS:

1.Problem of causation

2.Locus of interaction

11/03/08

Psychophysical ParallelismPOSITION: Mental states influence each

other. Bodily events also influence each other. BUT these two cannot influence

each other.PROBLEMS:

1. Commonsense?

2. A pre-established harmony

11/03/08

Emergentism (Epiphenomenalism)

POSITION: Mental processes are produced by brain processes, but are qualitatively

different.

11/03/08

The physical can effect the mental and each other but otherwise is not acceptable.

Why give up dualism?Mental depends on the physical

Unexplained aspects (not informative)

Pluralism• What is Pluralism?• Pluralism embraces the reality of

mind and body but also insists that these two orders are not the only possibilities.

Pluralism Many Realities !!!

• Attributive Pluralism emphasizes the relationship between an object and the words that are used to describe the object.

What is a sunset?

Attributive Pluralism

Psychogeny: the origin of psuche

mind,spirit,soul

principle of life, existence associated with mental processes (consciousness, perception, self-awearness,memory...)

IT:individuals’ role related behaviours

SIT: group processes and ingroup relations

Identity Theory

George Herbert Mead (1934) “society shapes self shapes social behaviour”

-punctuated and complete instatiation of pusche into a material substrate at a given instant time

-continuity between the “besouled” that is the starting of the individual life and later conscious and self-reflective person

-continuity between fertilized egg and the later individual

Identity = Sameness

Arbitrary Time of Infusion

• after 40 days if male

after 80 days if female

• quickening

Colony of cells; morula or blastocyst

= twins, artificial fertilization

...that spirits are standing by at the mating and birth of animals- a numberless number of immortals on the look-out for mortal frames, jostling to get in first... Or is there perhaps an established compact that first come will be first served?

( Lucretius,1959)

Emergentism: unity of physical and mental worlds

John Stuart Mill System of Logic(1843)

C.D. Broad The Mind and its Place in Nature(1925)

Llyod Morgan & Samuel Alexander Space, Time and Deity (1920)

Ludwig von Bertalanffy General System Theory

Arbitrary Time of Emergence-colony of cells has an apparent sense of boundaries and these boundaries constitutes primitive awareness.

-there is no primitive awareness without a reasonably well developed nervous system

How much complexity is required?

Are they conscious without a circulatory system?Are they conscious without a circulatory system?

Is colony of cells without a nervous system conscious?

Is it same me today as it was years ago?

Is a high school student less of a person than a proffessor?

How should happy adults with rich personal experiences but low intellegence be treated?

Emergentism devalues psuche?Emergentism devalues psuche?