Relationship Between The Mind And The Brain

In his writings, “A Contemporary Defense of Dualism,” J.P. Moreland argues the point that the mind and brain are separate from each other. It seems as a quick thought that both are the same. However, the mind deals with ideas, thoughts and hopes. The brain is made up of the neural process. Throughout the entire argument, Moreland tries to prove the theory of physicalism, which is the idea that only things that exist are composed of matter. His explanation is that the soul doesn’t exist and the brain controls everything.

Consciousness, Thomas Nagel states, “is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.” Here he refers particularly to phenomenal consciousness, which Block defines as “perceptual experiences,” and Nagel describes as “something that it is to be.’ This experiential element appears to present a challenge to the physicalist assertion that all mental processes are explicable in terms of physical brain states, biochemical reactions and the laws of physics. Frank Jackson presents this argument in his 1982 thesis Epiphenomenal Qualia. Whilst Jackson’s argument occupies a seminal position in philosophy of mind, whether he adds anything new to knowledge of the nature of conscious experience, is debateable. Thomas Nagel’s What is it like to

He explains that reductionism only accounts for reducing the mind to physics. However, it leaves out consciousness. Therefore, according to Nagel, reductionism is inaccurate because it excludes subjective experience. In order to explain his point, Nagel provides the reader with an analogy using bats. He states that the he is able to imagine himself with webbed arms, which permit him to fly around at night catching insects in his mouth. He expands, and says he is able to imagine that he has poor vision and has to use sonar to communicate, and finally he adds that he is able to imagine hanging upside down in an attic. However Nagel clarifies that these things would only explain what it would be like for him to be a bat. The question he wants answered is what it is like for a bat to be a bat? (423). He explains how if one tries to image this, they are restricted by their own mind. By presenting this information Nagel is able to support his claim because one cannot look and behave like another organism without changing their fundamental structure. One’s experiences cannot be anything like the experience from the point of view of another organism

The mind is a complex myriad of thoughts and psychological systems that even philosophers today cannot entirely grapple. It is composed of the senses, feelings, perceptions, and a whole series of other components. However, the mind is often believed to be similar or even the same as the brain. This gives rise to the mind-brain identity theory, and whether there exists a clear distinction between the physical world and the non-material mind. In this paper, I will delineate the similarities and differences between mind and brain, describe the relevant ideas such as functionalism and materialism, and provide explanations on how these theories crystallized. Further, I will discuss the differing views of this concept from multiple philosophers’ perspectives and highlight the significance of each. Ultimately, I will defend the view that the mind-brain identity theory is false by analyzing its errors and examining the invalid assumptions it makes about consciousness.

The 'mind-body' problem has troubled philosophers for centuries. This is because no human being has been able to sufficiently explain how the mind actually works and how this mind relates to the body - most importantly to the brain. If this were not true then there would not be such heated debates on the subject. No one objects to the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun because it is empirical fact. However, there is no current explanation on the mind that can be accepted as fact. In 'What is it like to be a bat?', Thomas Nagel does not attempt to solve this 'problem'. Instead, he attempts to reject the reductionist views with his argument on subjectivity. He

One of the most talked about concepts of philosophy is that of the mind-body problem. In short, the mind-body problem is the relationship between the mind and the body. Specifically, it’s the connection between our mental realm of thoughts, including beliefs, ideas, sensations, emotions, and our physical realm, the actual matter of which we are made up of the atoms, neurons. The problem comes when we put the emphasis on mind and body. Are the mind and body one physical thing, or two separate entities. Two arguments have stood amongst the rest, Interactionism and physicalism. Interactionism claims that mind and matter are two separate categories with a casual integration between the two. By contrast, physicalism draws from the idea that all aspects of the human body are under one physical being, there are no nonphysical connections that come into play. While both state a clear and arguable statement regarding mind-body problem, Interactionism gives a more plausible answer to the mind-body problem because although it may seem like we are tied as one, our minds have a subconscious that influence our thoughts, actions, ideas, and beliefs, which is completely independent from the realm of our physical matter.

In Nagel’s What Is It Like To Be a Bat, issues regarding consciousness are raised. One such issue is the mind-body problem which, as noted by Nagel, does not seem to fit with reductionist theories. That is, reductionist theories aim to explain things (e.g. persons and/or animal experiences) in relation to physical processes (i.e. organisms are just the sum of their physical parts). However, consciousness does not easily cooperate with such theories because it must be given a physical account. In addition, the nature of consciousness is that it is unique to a specific viewpoint (e.g. we can imagine what it would be for us to be a bat, but we cannot experience the mindset of said organism).

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.

In denying that the mind and mental properties, like qualia, are nonphysical things, mind-brain theory objects to both substance and property dualism. Therefore it is a physicalist approach to the philosophy of

The mind and body problem can be divided into many different questions. We can consider or ask by ourselves that what is the mind? What is the body? And do both of them are co-existing, or does the mind only exist in the body? Or does the body only exist

The mind is perhaps the most fascinating part of the human body due to its complexity and ability to rationalize. In essence, the mind-body problem studies the relation of the mind to the body, and states that each human being seems to embody two unique and somewhat contradictory natures. Each human contains both a nature of matter and physicality, just like any other object that contains atoms in the universe. However, mankind also is constituted of something beyond materialism, which includes its ability to rationalize and be self-aware. This would imply that mankind is not simply another member of the world of matter because some of its most distinctive features cannot be accounted for in this manner. There are obvious differences between physical and mental properties. Physical properties are publically accessible, and have weight, texture, and are made of matter. Mental properties are not publically accessible, and have phenomenological texture and intentionality (Stewart, Blocker, Petrik, 2013). This is challenging to philosophers, because man cannot be categorized as a material or immaterial object, but rather a combination of both mind and body (Stewart, Blocker, Petrik, 2013). Man embodies mind-body dualism, meaning he is a blend of both mind and matter (Stewart, Blocker, Petrick, 2013). The mind-body problem creates conflict among philosophers, especially when analyzing physicalism in its defense. This paper outlines sound

Here Nagel sees a direct impact on the mind-body problem: Accessing these facts about what it is to

from the physical body. In the Identity Theory, the mind is one with the brain and there

Assuming that one has to be in a conscious state of mind in order for one to understand what it is like to be something, Nagel starts off his argument with an idea for consciousness. He criticizes the concept of functionalism for disregarding the subjective view of the mind into a purely objective view. Taking into account what he had just stated, Nagel makes his claim: “The fact that [a bat] has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something that it is like to be [a bat]” (Nagel 1974, pp. 436). This “what it is like” is the subjective aspect of Nagel’s theory. He suggests that previous theories on the mind-body problem did not capture this “subjective character of experience” (Nagel 1974, pp. 436). The “subjective character of experience” can be defined as the idea that a certain organism can only have conscious experiences that only it can feel. Using the subjective aspect of consciousness, Nagel explains that consciousness cannot be defined through only objective means. I agree in Nagel’s stance that the subjective experience is “not analyzable in terms of any explanatory system of functional states, or intentional states” (Nagel 1974, pp. 436). Nagel’s argument is convincing; when people feel an emotion such as pain, no one really knows how to describe it, for one person’s pain might be completely different from another’s. What is there to say that feelings such as pain could be described purely through objective means? In other words, the

Opposed to Mind-Body Materialism is Mind-Body Dualism, a view which supports that mind and body are not identical, but, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. It denies that the mind is the same of the brain, or a product of the brain, by arguing that the thoughts and the material things are composed of different substances, and the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects: size, shape, location, solidity, motion, etc. According to the Dualism, the soul is comprised of a non-physical substance, while the body is constituted of matter. This view also establishes that mind and body are capable of causally affecting each other, even if they are necessarily not the same thing. When applying this notion the human body, the meaning becomes clearest: the intellect is responsible for all our acts, but it does not imply that the intellect is the brain. For example, before eating a meal, which is a physical action, you probably felt hungry,