The Mind-Body Problem 3.0

The Mind-Body Problem: A Critical Discussion, 2020

The mind-body problem is a philosophical dilemma that concerns the relationship between the mind and body of humans (Garcia-Albea, 2018). This question arises when the mind is viewed as a metaphysical construct, separate from the body in its entirety (Descartes, 1953). Theories ranging from the early Greeks philosophers to modern day neuroscientists aim to show how the mind works in tandem with the physical body and if they are indeed separate entities. This mind-body problem was first defined by Descartes (1953), as the relationship between the immaterial, thinking mind and the material, non-thinking and reactionary body. However, this concept was debated long before Descartes’s (1953) theory, with the likes of Aristotle and Plato both proposing that the mind and body are comprised of two entirely separate entities. This thesis will discuss the development of the mind-body problem as well as its comparison to other theories and disciplines, such as the neuroscientific approach and functionalism (Brysbaert & Rastle, 2013).

Open Journal of Philosophy, 2011

An old philosophical problem, the mind-body problem, has not been yet solved by philosophers or scientists. Even if in cognitive neuroscience has been a stunning development in the last 20 years, the mind-body problem remained unsolved. Even if the majority of researchers in this domain accept the identity theory from an ontological viewpoint, many of them reject this position from an epistemological viewpoint. In this context, I consider that it is quite possible the framework of this problem to be wrong and this is the main reason the problem could not be solved. I offer an alternative, the epistemologically different world's perspective, which replaces the world or the universe. In this new context, the mind-body problem becomes a pseudo-problem.

How do our mental states relate to the physical states of our body? Do our mental states arise from the physical processes of our body? Is it really the case that some of our actions are caused by our mental states such as our intentions and desires? Is there a significant difference between a physical state causing another physical state say the cutting of our skin causing the bleeding of our skin, and a mental state causing a physical state say desiring to raise our arm causing the rising of our arm? If we believe that there are such things as mental states that are over and above the physical states of our body then it is important to know how they relate to the physical states of our body. The investigation of the various philosophical issues connected to the relation between mind and body, or between our mental states (and processes) and bodily states (and processes), is the primary concern of what has been called in philosophy as the mind-body problem. The mind-body problem, as can be gleaned from the discussions of philosophers on this problem, has the following two types. The first concerns the ontological (or existential) relation between mind and body, where the inquiry focuses on how the existence of the mental states relates to the existence of bodily states-or the physical states of the body. I shall call this type of mind-body problem as the ontological mind-body problem. The second one, on the other hand, concerns the causal relation between mental states and bodily states, where the inquiry focuses on whether there is a causal relation between these two types of states, and if there is, on what type of causal relation is at work therein. I shall call this type of mind-body problem as the causal mind-body problem. In this essay, I examine the various solutions proposed by philosophers to the mind-body problem both in its ontological and causal form.

The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind, eds. T. Warfield and S. Stich, Blackwell, 2003, pp. 1-46., 2003

2019

Three monist views on the mind-body problem are presented. Triple-aspect monism considers that there are three main phases of actualization of the potentialities in Nature: the physical, the informational, and the conscious. The double-face view assumes that conscious mind and brain are irreducible to each other, stressing not only that the conscious mind is dependent on the brain, but that changes in the brain are also dependent on the conscious mind. Qualitative physicalism adopts the mindbrain identity thesis, and defends the view that subjective qualia are actual physical attributes of some region of the brain.

Journal of the Siena Academy of Sciences

After a brief review of the solutions given to the mind-body problem by philosophers I propose a naturalistic-materialistic solution that is based on a collaboration between the philosophy of mind and neurosciences. According to this solution the three fundamental characteristics of every human state of consciousness-that is, having a content and being conscious and self-conscious-are identified with three higher order properties of brain dynamics from an ontological point of view, although each of them can be described and explained in the language of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and folk-psychology.

2016

In this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in philosophy of mind circles: are minds located in the same place as the brains (or other computing machinery) supporting them? Must they exist at the same location as the body? Must they exist at the same time? Could a single mind be implemented in multiple brains, or multiple minds in a single brain? Under what conditions might a single mind persist despite being implemented successively in different brains? What contributions do features of the computing machinery make to these questions, compared to the contribution made by the body and embedded point of view? Some of these questions have been touched on previously, but there hasn't been any attempt at a systematic analysis of the various consequences that different approaches in the philosophy of mind have for how the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation and diachronic identity of minds relates to the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation, and diachronic identity of both the implementing computational machinery and the embodied embedded point of view. I make a first stab at such an analysis by discussing a variety of thought experiments in which such questions of location, individuation, and identity arise, and I explore how various approaches to understanding the mind – identity theoretic, functionalist, contentualist, embodied/embedded/extended, and so forth – would respond to such situations. A number of novel issues emerge, and some surprising affinities are revealed.

Neurological Sciences, 2018

Using an analysis of a voluntary action caused by a visual perception, I suggest that the three fundamental characteristics of this perception (being conscious, self-conscious, and provided with a content) are neurologically implemented by three distinct higher order properties of brain dynamics. This hypothesis allows me to sketch out a physicalist naturalist solution to the mind-body problem. According to this solution, primary phenomenal consciousness is neither a non-physical substance, nor a non-physical property but simply the Bformat^that the brain gives to a part of its dynamics in order to obtain a fine tuning with its environment when the body acts on it.

The solution of the mind-body problem as the problem of interrelation and interconditionality of mental and physiological faces contradictions when one proceeds from the classical subject-object opposition. Accepting the subject-object opposition only as the convenient way for a scientist to speak about the phenomena of this world (the way that shouldn’t be equal to the world itself), it is already senseless to look for the reason of a mental event either in biology nor in sociality. The subject-object opposition itself is possible, because the event of proportionality of human being and world have happened. In this event the human being and the world are defined by a finite way and until it neither the human being, nor the world can’t be defined. The human physiology (as well as a sociality which is sometimes unfairly identified with spirituality) can be considered as a marker of such definiteness, it is minimum of the being of consciousness. However in addition to this minimum there is also another aspect. Indeed, in every act of perception two events are realized simultaneously (not in a sequence): perception of a certain seeming (what is possible if human being and world are already defined, i.e. the act of proportionality of human being and world have happened) and a certain content. The content is always related to a certain idea. Ideas, in its turn, can be subdivided into two classes. To the first we will attribute the ideas which are the result of generalization of preceding experience and which give an opportunity to speak in an ordered way about the phenomena of the surrounding world. But there are also ideas of another sort – those that give an opportunity to the human being to newly recreate himself each time in the complete and ordered state. These ideas organize human life as human one, they are initiated by culture, but they are not a result of generalization. Such are a conscience, good, moral, love and the similar phenomena for which there are no external reasons – here the basis of a phenomenon coincide with the phenomenon itself. So, human physiology (including work of human brain) is the only side which characterizes the minimum of life of consciousness, it is the marker of human being and world are defined now. We are always after this definiteness (or, more precisely, inside it) when we perceive events of the world, and one shouldn’t search the conditions of any event of life of consciousness (the point of interests of ontology) either in biology nor in sociality. Every conscious act is complete and self-sufficient, and the consciousness basis (being actually the basis of human being) can be found only in consciousness.

A recent attempt to describe the mind body problem. This paper discuss the metaphors that lead to the problem and illustrates by example where the problem does not occur.