Other People Do Not Have Minds

We all go through our life’s as individuals. We are present in our life’s at the time of our birth, though we do not recall being there. We are present in our life’s at the time of death. There have thoughts and experiences of interacting with other objects, animals, and humans. But is this reality? Can I be certain, without a doubt, of the credibility of my experiences? Are there other beings and if so do these beings have conscious experiences? Furthermore, I will question that if these other conscious beings do exist then are the experiences of these being similar to my experience and can I observer these experiences to predict what the being is experiencing.

Therefore one can trust that because one thinks one exists; this leaves each of us with his/her own mind (Blackburn, 1999: 49). Premise two states that we can and do know that other people have minds, this can be based on the interactions we have with other people. The fact that someone else can love you back and you can feel it makes it possible that they are connected to your mind in the mental realm which can only mean that they do have a mind. Based on the fact that it is difficult to conceptualise that one may be the only existent being makes it open to believe that one is not the only one existent- other people do exists and therefore they have minds. Premise two therefore is valid which diminishes what is presented in premise one about Cartesian Dualism that we can never know that other people have minds. Premise three therefore lawfully, following from premise one and two that with the validity presented in previous premises, states that Cartesian Dualism is false.

According to John Locke, the mind is “white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas” (“Human Understanding” 107). Similarly,

Descartes’ argue that mind is better known than body by first claiming humans as fundamentally rational, meaning “a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling,” ( Descartes, 19) he therefore argues that humans have the ability to know their proper minds clearly and distinctly. He proposes the conception of the mind where the imagination and the senses are also inherent capabilities of the body (faculties), specifically powers of the mind.

People understand each other using cognitive skills, an example of this is mindreading. Mindreading abilities also referred to as the theory of mind (ToM) is acknowledging that other people have mental states, such as understanding that others have desires, motives, beliefs and intentions (Hewson, 2015a). This is generally an essential, undemanding skill for social interaction. Thereby, this essay will evaluate how psychology has helped to explain how people understand each other by firstly, explaining how different aspects of ToM have been studied. Additionally, Heider and Simmel’s (1944) study of geometric shapes will be explored to demonstrate how people interpret other people’s behaviour, even in animation. Subsequently, Autism

In Eras 111 he demonstrated that one consciousness is not limited to just your own body but can extend to others bodies as well. In Eras 111 Dorsey explained that one conscious mind can affect not just their own body but that of someone else who be nearby or at a distance with no physical or mental connection. The example of this theory is even when twins are separated from birth, they can

In David M. Armstrong’s “The Nature of Mind”, Armstrong praises the field of science and seeks to put the concept of mind into terms that agree with science’s definition of minds. His interest is in the physico-chemical, materialist view of man. Armstrong considers science to be the authority over other disciplines because of its reliability and result in consensus over disputed questions.

Thesis: The mind-body problem arises because of the lack of evidence when looking for a specific explanation of the interaction of mental and physical states, and the origin and even existence of them.

For many years the question of whether or not the unconscious mind really exists, and if it does then what does it consist of has baffled many theorist’s minds and has made many philosophers question themselves. There have been debates on whether the conscious mind is influenced by other parts of the mind. These parts are indented within the unconscious, which has processes such as personal habits, intuition and being oblivious to certain things in life. While we are completely aware of what is happening I the conscious mind, we have absolutely no idea of what information is stored in the unconscious mind. It is believed that the unconscious mind comprises various significant and disturbing material, which is required to be kept out of awareness as they may be too menacing to completely acknowledge and be mindful of. There are been some critics that have completely disbelieved the existence of the unconscious mind. Many psychological scientists today believe that the unconscious mind is the shadow of a “real” conscious mind. However, through extensive research, evidence has been found that the unconscious is not visibly complex, controlling, or action-orientated.

he comes to term with three certainties: the existence of the mind as the thing that thinks,

There are many facts that are unknown about the mind. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand how it works. We have learned that the mind has a number of different levels of processing. Before Sigmund Freud “nearly all the previous research and theorizing of psychologists had dealt with conscious, such as perception, memory, judgment, and learning“ (Hunt185). Freud brought forth a number of theories that dealt with “the unconscious and its crucial role in human behavior”(Hunt 185). The unconscious is a storage area for information that is not being used. It is also the home of “powerful primitive drives and forbidden wishes that constantly generated pressure on the conscious mind”(Hunt

For in Descartes terms, it was plausible to doubt that one has a body, but impossible to doubt the existence of one’s mind; therefore “…self and mind must be identical” (Palmer 162).

According to James Rachel, an author of “Elements of Moral Philosophy,” there two main arguments exist against psychological egoism.

If it is logically possible that my mind exist independent of my body, then my body and mind are distinct things.

The Problem of Other Minds is said to be first introduced by John Stuart Mill in his 1979 works “An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, and of The Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed in his Writings” (Mill, 1867) in which Mill talks about his “fellow creatures” and his belief that there are other minds beside our own. The idea behind the problem of other minds is whether or not we can justify our belief that there are other minds beside our own. It is often claimed that the Problem of Other Minds was in fact first introduced by Rene Descartes, his interpretation of minds as separate entities gives rise to not only his problem of mental causation but also the Problem of Other Minds. Descartes theory that dogs cannot