The Question: Are the Mind and Body Separate?
My Answer: I believe that the mind and body are separate from each other. The body is physical and the mind is non-physical/empirical.
The mind consists of your conscious and unconscious thoughts, emotions, memories and experiences. All of these things are separate from the body because they do not effect your body physically. These things can not be measured, controlled, or predicted by others visibly. The only way anyone can know these things about you is if you tell them. Even doctors and scientist can not be accessible to that part of someone unless they ask questions.
The body is clearly physical and can be measured, controlled, or predicted by others visibly. Any one can touch some one's body and they will feel it physically, unlike the mind.
Counterargument: Some may say, "but the mind and body do interact with each other." I would say that mind and body don't interact with each other. I would say that the brain and body interact with each other. Some ones thoughts, emotions, memories, and experiences do not physically control the body like the brain does. Some one might argue that those things that constitutes your mind may make you happy or sad and would cause you to cry which would then be a physical reaction from your body. I would argue that it's not the actual mind thats making you cry, it's the person that retrieved the sad thoughts, experiences, emotions, or memories from the mind that is allowing them selves to cry.
Recapped Conclusion: The Mind and Body are Separate ;) !
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Some Words to Know- Blog 4
*Mind-Body Dualism- This theory says that the mind and the body are two different kinds of things: The body is physical, while the mind is non physical.
*Privileged Access- Each person has special access to his/her mental state. Mental facts and physical facts are know in different ways. Physical facts are know by observation and experiment. Thus, they are publicly available: Anyone can look and see how tall you are. You learn your height in the same way that everyone else does, by looking and seeing. In fact, other people may know more about your body than you know. Though, all mental states are private. Each person has special access through introspection, to his or her own thoughts.
*Infallibility- Each person is infallible with respect to his/her own mental states. We can easily be mistaken about physical facts, including facts about ourselves. A woman might believe she is five-foot-one when really she is only five feet. You might believe you have an appendix, because you have forgotten the operation you had as a child. Of course, we may believe some things about ourselves with a high degree of confidence. You may be certain, for example, that you have two arms. But, at least in principle, you could be wrong about even that. You could be crazy, or, as Descartes says, and evil demon could be deceiving you.
*Behaviorism- Deals with what is publicly observed. So, rather than saying "Jane shouted because she was angry," behaviorists would focus on Jane's situation and the events that triggered her outcry. She shouted, for example, because she was surrounded by noisy children, and one of them squirted water in her ear. According to Watson and Skinner, the science of psychology looks for patterns of stimulus and response- physical responses (shouting) to physical stimuli (noise, water in the ear)- and formulates general laws about how behavior is shaped by physical inputs. Here, private mental episodes are irrelevant.
*Mind-Brain Identity- Event in the brain cause mental experiences. This was discovered by Wilder Penfield, a Canadian physician who developed techniques for operating on the brain while the patient is awake, using only local anesthetic. So while patients were fully conscious he would use an electric probe to stimulate their brains, and the patients would report what they were experiencing. One patient said he was sitting at a railway station. Another said he was snatching a stick from the mouth of a dog. The patients did not say they were remembering these experiences; they said they were having them. Feelings such as fear and loneliness were also reported. In each case the experience could be repeated by restimulating the same spot in the brain.
*All of the above statements may be sited from the following:
Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. Problems From Philosophy. 2nd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2005. 71-79.
*Privileged Access- Each person has special access to his/her mental state. Mental facts and physical facts are know in different ways. Physical facts are know by observation and experiment. Thus, they are publicly available: Anyone can look and see how tall you are. You learn your height in the same way that everyone else does, by looking and seeing. In fact, other people may know more about your body than you know. Though, all mental states are private. Each person has special access through introspection, to his or her own thoughts.
*Infallibility- Each person is infallible with respect to his/her own mental states. We can easily be mistaken about physical facts, including facts about ourselves. A woman might believe she is five-foot-one when really she is only five feet. You might believe you have an appendix, because you have forgotten the operation you had as a child. Of course, we may believe some things about ourselves with a high degree of confidence. You may be certain, for example, that you have two arms. But, at least in principle, you could be wrong about even that. You could be crazy, or, as Descartes says, and evil demon could be deceiving you.
*Behaviorism- Deals with what is publicly observed. So, rather than saying "Jane shouted because she was angry," behaviorists would focus on Jane's situation and the events that triggered her outcry. She shouted, for example, because she was surrounded by noisy children, and one of them squirted water in her ear. According to Watson and Skinner, the science of psychology looks for patterns of stimulus and response- physical responses (shouting) to physical stimuli (noise, water in the ear)- and formulates general laws about how behavior is shaped by physical inputs. Here, private mental episodes are irrelevant.
*Mind-Brain Identity- Event in the brain cause mental experiences. This was discovered by Wilder Penfield, a Canadian physician who developed techniques for operating on the brain while the patient is awake, using only local anesthetic. So while patients were fully conscious he would use an electric probe to stimulate their brains, and the patients would report what they were experiencing. One patient said he was sitting at a railway station. Another said he was snatching a stick from the mouth of a dog. The patients did not say they were remembering these experiences; they said they were having them. Feelings such as fear and loneliness were also reported. In each case the experience could be repeated by restimulating the same spot in the brain.
*All of the above statements may be sited from the following:
Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. Problems From Philosophy. 2nd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2005. 71-79.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Body and Mind- Blog 2
I have decided that throughout this course I'm choosing to question the body and mind correlation. How is it that you body is made up of and works on a totally different composition than your mind? The body and mind are like apples and oranges, they are both fruit, but two different taste and appearances. How is it that we can have unconscious thought and our body will never be affect by it? How is it that we can have a missing limb but still feel it? Or, we can take that a piece of our brain out correlating to a limb that is still intact and not be able to feel that limb any longer. How do we know that what one person perceives is the same as another, or even what's true to be perceived? If two people get burnt with the same exact object, do they feel the same thing? If the body and mind are similar and function the same amongst everyone, why are sensations and perceptions different between people? Two people can see the same car accident and
give two totally different accident reports to the police, why? Then later when asked to recall their story may even give a whole new story than before.
Dualistic Views
*Interactionism- beliefs and desires casually interact with physical state (Wikipedia)
*Occasionalism- contention that everything is devoid of causal efficacy and that God is the only truly causal agent (Philosophy of Mind)
*Psychophysical Parallelism- This view retains both the dualism of mind and body and the notion of a regular correlation between mental and physical events, but avoids any assumption of causal mind/body connection, direct or indirect (Serendip)
http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/mindbody.html
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/17th.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)
give two totally different accident reports to the police, why? Then later when asked to recall their story may even give a whole new story than before.
Dualistic Views
*Interactionism- beliefs and desires casually interact with physical state (Wikipedia)
*Occasionalism- contention that everything is devoid of causal efficacy and that God is the only truly causal agent (Philosophy of Mind)
*Psychophysical Parallelism- This view retains both the dualism of mind and body and the notion of a regular correlation between mental and physical events, but avoids any assumption of causal mind/body connection, direct or indirect (Serendip)
http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/mindbody.html
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/17th.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Is Mind Distinct from Body?- Blog 3
This video is part one of three parts about the body and mind question. Once you get past the first few minutes it become interesting and talks about the philosopher Descartes.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Personal Idenity- Blog 1
Personal Identity refers to the essence of a self conscious person, that which makes him or her uniquely what they are at any one point in time, and which further persists over time despite superficial modifications, making him or her same person at different points in time also (Wikipedia). I feel that this is a very important subject to question. I have to live with myself for the rest of my life and I feel that knowing me completely will only make my life easier. If I go through life not knowing who I really am and what my purpose is supposed to be, I am cheating myself from a fulfilled, complete life.
Body and Mind- Blog 1
I am intrigued that there is a question about how your body and mind work together. People have studied the body and how it works, and the brain and how it works, but no one knows how the brain actually works in relation to the body. Some people ask how it can be possible for conscious experience arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties (Wikipedia). Also, your brain controls everything you do, consciously or unconsciously, so why wouldn’t I want to know more about how it’s controlling me?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
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