What Is Mind And Does It Exist?

From my perspective, the mind always seemed like a complicated and intricate puzzle. It was a puzzle that I had no desire to evaluate or even begin to learn more about. It was something that I had just accepted because I believed it was above my understanding and much too complex. However, I never thought to look at just one small piece of the puzzle. If I could just focus on one little section, maybe I could increase my overall knowledge of the mind. By reading the book, Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, I was given the opportunity to be able to specialize on one very crucial part of our mind. A part that deals with how we view ourselves and others, our communication, and the reasoning behind our actions. This is called our mindset. While reading

While the great philosophical distinction between mind and body in western thought can be traced to the Greeks, it is to

Mind-body dualism is usually seen as the central issue in philosophy of the mind. The problem with mind-body dualism is that it is unknown whether the mind really is a separate entity from the human body as Descartes states in his argument, or whether the mind is the brain itself. Descartes believed that in a person existed two major components, the physical body and the nonphysical body which was called the mind or soul. As a scientist, Descartes believed in mechanical theories of matter, however, he was also very religious and did not believe people could merely be mechanical creatures that ran like “clockwork.” And so, it was Descartes who argued that the mind directed thoughts. To account for this, he split the world into two parts,

Often many times we wonder what it is like to understand the mind and its functions, yet to understand it we have to have the knowledge to go forth with it. The mind is a complex figure to understand; furthermore the mind is something you must understand on your own. The philosophical meaning of the mind is, the nature of mental phenomena, and their behavior, nonetheless the brain. The mind is not something easy to make sense of, its like reading a hundred pages of Spanish writings and being able to tell the whole story to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. Things like reality, computers, conciseness, reactions, response, etc, come into factor when figuring out the mind.

Nothing in the world is more mysterious than the human mind but without the brain how do you have a mind? The brain sends and receives information by electrical impulses around the human body allowing us to see, move, feel, hear and think. If the brain is removed from the human body these impulses will cease, thus there will be no mind. Philosophers like Place, Smart, and Armstrong support this claim through the notion of identify theory and type physicalism. Brain and mind identity is a very controversial topic with some philosophers arguing that because people can have knowledge of a specific mental state without being affected in the physical state, mind and the brain may well be different. However with significant breakthroughs in neuroscience in the last century, such as Dr. Penfield’s Montreal procedure it is safe to say that the brain has direct control over the mind thus the two being in/distinguishable.

However, one must remember that by “mind” Descartes meant only “a thing that thinks” (Meditations, p. 20), which is to say that thinking is the essence of the mind. From this kernel of truth Descartes builds up the rest of his understanding of the mind and part of this understanding is that the mind is entirely accessible to itself and in this sense is one unified thing. However, today the

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

     For centuries philosophers have debated on monism and dualism, two different philosophical views of the human person. Philosophers have been trying to decipher whether the person is made up of the mind, the body, or both. Monists hold the belief that existence is purely based upon one ultimate “category of being” this means that either the person is made up of only the body or only the mind (Morris p155). Dualists hold the belief that existence is based upon the body as well as the mind and its mental properties (Morris p155).

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).

The mind-body problem is an age-old topic in philosophy that questions the relationship between the mental aspect of life, such as the field of beliefs, pains, and emotions, and the physical side of life which deals with matter, atoms, and neurons. There are four concepts that each argue their respective sides. For example, Physicalism is the belief that humans only have a physical brain along with other physical structures, whereas Idealism argues that everything is mind-based. Furthermore, Materialism argues that the whole universe is purely physical. However, the strongest case that answers the commonly asked questions such as “Does the mind exist?” and “Is the mind your brain?” is Dualism.

René Descartes was a French philosopher responsible for many ideas and theories still used in the philosophical world today. He earned the nickname “Father of modern philosophy” for his work. One of his most in depth and lasting legacies is his “mind-body dualism” thesis also known as the Cartesian theory of mind.

“The mind-body dualism, in philosophy, is the fact that any theory that the mind and body are distinct kinds of substances or natures. This position implies that mind and body not only differ in meaning, but refer to different kinds of entities (Britannica).” The most basic form of dualism is substance dualism. Substance dualism is the idea that he mind and body are composed of two ontologically distinct substances. According to one who believes and studies dualism, the mind is comprised of a non-physical substance, while the body is constituted of the physical substance, also known as matter. Dualism is closely related to the philosophy of Rene Descartes. Descartes identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain. He believed that the brain was the seat of all intelligence. This lead to a great debate over the mind and body. So, ultimately, what is the nature of the mind and consciousness and its relationship to the body?

exists except from matter so therefore the mind and the body (brain) work together and

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

Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind (1949) is a critique of the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, and is a rejection of the philosophical theory that mental states are distinct from physical states. Ryle argues that the traditional approach to the relation of mind and body (i.e., the approach which is taken by the philosophy of Descartes) assumes that there is a basic distinction between Mind and Matter. According to Ryle, this assumption is a basic 'category-mistake,' because it attempts to analyze the relation betwen 'mind' and 'body' as if they were terms of the same logical category. Furthermore, Ryle argues that traditional Idealism makes a basic 'category-mistake' by trying to