The Inner Workings Of The Brain

Descartian dualism is one of the most long lasting legacies of Rene Descartes’ philosophy. He argues that the mind and body operate as separate entities able to exist without one another. That is, the mind is a thinking, non-extended entity and the body is non-thinking and extended. His belief elicited a debate over the nature of the mind and body that has spanned centuries, a debate that is still vociferously argued today. In this essay, I will try and tackle Descartes claim and come to some conclusion as to whether Descartes is correct to say that the mind and body are distinct.

In the article titled, “Secrets of the Brain” published in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic, we learn that there have been many advances in understanding the inner workings of our brains. One of the leading scentists, Van Weeden, is working hard to understand the connections that occur within our heads.

Armstrong begins his paper with a question for the reader of what it means to have a mind. It is well understood that man has the ability to perceive, to think, to feel, and so on, but what does it mean to perceive, to think, and to feel? The answer, he believes, lies in science. Seeing that science is constantly and rapidly gaining ground, he asserts that “...we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms” (295?) Pointing out the fact that this view has been accepted by various scientists throughout time, he explains it is the most reliable way to approach the mind-body problem.

I read the article, “Secrets of the Brain”, found in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic written by Carl Zimmer. I chose this subject because I have been fascinated with the brain and how it works. The research of the brain has been ongoing for many centuries now. The history in this article is interesting. It explained how scientists used to understand the brain and its inner workings. For example, “in the ancient world physicians believed that the brain was made of phlegm. Aristotle looked on it as a refrigerator, cooling of the fiery heart. From his time through the Renaissance, anatomists declared with great authority that our perceptions, emotions, reasoning, and actions were all the result of “animal spirits”—mysterious, unknowable vapors that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our bodies.” (Zimmer, p. 38)

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.

Summary: The problem of the soul continues as Descartes suggested that the human is composed of two completely different substances; a physical body which Descartes compares with a machine, and a non-physical mind, related to the soul, that allows humans to think and feel even if it has no “measurable dimensions” (67). But Elizabeth put in doubt his ideologies when she realized that a non-physical thing doesn’t have the strength to push and move the body. This led to several questions unanswered and also let space for other materialist theories such as behaviorism, mind-brain identity, and functionalism, which also fail in offering an explicit solution.

In Meditation six: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body, Rene Descartes wrote of his distinctions between the mind and the body, first by reviewing all things that he believed to be true, then assessing the causes and later calling them into doubt, and then finally by considering what he must now believe. By analyzing Descartes’ writing, this paper will explicate Descartes’ view on bodies and animals, and if animals have minds. Before explicating the answer to those questions, Descartes’ distinctions between the mind and the body should first be summarized and explained.

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).

Abstract This paper provides arguments to support my position with reference to Descartes? claim that the mind and body are separate. The essay mainly analyses some main points from the works of Rene Descartes on mind-body dualism; much of his efforts were aimed to defy skepticism, he wanted to discover whether our beliefs could be relied upon. The substance for dualism put forward is supported by the fact that senses can be manipulated and senses can even lie, hence what we perceive can be deceptive or non-existent.

Descartes decided that the mind is the “ultimate arbiter of truth.” Causing much controversy, he proposed that the mind is a “rational instrument” that cannot be recreated in any sort of machine or robot. This proposition is still much debated in philosophy today and puzzles both philosophers and the layman in the form of the mind body dilemma. Neuroscience continues to explore this idea in 2015. As a neuroscience major, I am personally puzzled by the disjunction between the body and mind.

Many are disconcerted by the idea that humans and Minds can be described as systems which operate based on interpretations of symbols, much like machines, computers, and robots: things that we have created yet do not think of as being “thinking,” themselves. We, as human beings, are comforted in the notion that we are born into this world with a fully capable Mind, a soul or spirit, and are, thereafter, free to choose our fate as we will. Although it seems plausible that we are born with Mind, I cannot subscribe to such a simplistic version of thinking about our true capacity for affecting outcome.

The concept of mind and body interactions has been debated among many modern philosophers. Some believe that our minds and bodies are different things, thus existing separately, while others believe that they exist as a whole. In this paper, I will be introducing two rationalist philosophical views regarding this topic, one which is by Rene Descartes and the other by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Rationalists, in philosophical terms, are the ones who obtain their knowledge through reasoning rather than the human senses. Descartes and Leibniz both have similar perspectives, but Leibniz takes a slightly different approach to improve Descartes’ argument. This paper will first show Descartes’ original argument, an example that proves the argument to be invalid, and then lastly, a revised version of the argument with Leibniz’s help.

The mind and body problem is a conundrum that argues the explanation of how mental

The Mind-Body problem arises to Philosophy when we wonder what is the relationship between the mental states, like beliefs and thoughts, and the physical states, like water, human bodies and tables. For the purpose of this paper I will consider physical states as human bodies because we are thinking beings, while the other material things have no mental processes. The question whether mind and body are the same thing, somehow related, or two distinct things not related, has been asked throughout the history of Philosophy, so some philosophers tried to elaborate arrangements and arguments about it, in order to solve the problem and give a satisfactory answer to the question. This paper will argue that the Mind-Body Dualism, a view in

You live and you learn, from the moment that we breathe our first breath, we are assimilating and are acquiring information. Life changing and profound learning experiences happen before we can even speak, as children our learning process is grandiose. Harvard University published a series of summaries on Child development. One of these articles mentions that “The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood.” ("InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development," n.d.).