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.
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