Talk:Mind-body problem
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I think an article on this subject should mention Decartes and his "Cogito ego sum" idea, as in "I think, therefore I am". I think it's relevant to the mind-body issue and shouldnt be left out.
--ArcticFrog 14:06, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)ArcticFrog
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Should the article be ordered historically?
The discussion is introduced in terms of the "human body and its mind". However, the mind-body problem has been discussed throughout antiquity in slightly different terms by metaphysicians (in the philosophical rather than 'supernatural' sense), viz. as a question of the fundamental nature of reality : is reality composed of mind(s) or matter? The article's presentation begins from the relatively recent perspective of the philosophy of mind by focusing on the nature of human consciousness and things like neurons. However, this article goes on to generalize the discussion ("What is the basic relationship between the mental and the physical?") I suppose this critique is mainly one of structure and order. I am inclined to a more historically ordered presentation, although this may not be the best way to describe the topic in contemporary terms. This re-structuring would entail a major edit. 68.7.60.40 07:32, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Personally, I think it's better to start with the more recent theory, then delve back into (or refer to) the past as necessary. Clear sectioning and a degree of modularity would allow the reader to follow the piece in the order they prefer. Mr. Jones 03:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- BTW, who has suggested that the world is composed of mind? I don't think anyone has ever seriously suggested that. Mr. Jones 17:49, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- George Berkeley's Subjective idealism seems to be precisely this view. --mporch 11:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
William James and the Mind-Body Problem
William James makes a very important point in one of his books on the subject - but I cannot remember which one. Can anyone point me to it? Also, has anyone else made similar points?
Anyway, the point he made was this:
Opponents of dualism ask, "How exactly does the mind substance interact with the physical substance?" William James replies, "How exactly does one physical substance interact with another physical substance?" The answer, according to James, as I understand him, is "It just does". If a physical substance can act on another physical substance, why can't a mental substance act on a physical substance?
If I can find where James discusses this, I will have to reread that argument. Michael Voytinsky
- I don't have copy on me at the moment, but I'd say that the most likely source is his Principles of Psychology, most likely the sections on "The Automaton Theory" and "Mind-stuff". Again, I'm going from memory here. If you have the two-volume set, the most interesting material is in the first volume, I think. The wiki article on the PoP has a link to the etext. — Adam Conover † 16:53, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
- It's probably worth mentioning that the idea, "It just does" is a classic example of the type of philosophy advocated by pragmatism --mporch 21:00, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
An outline of Larry Sanger's article
This has a few additions (by other editors and myself) beyond what Larry wrote, of course. Please wikify this and make changes and suggestions as to how it should be structured. I do quite like the flow of it. I hope we can regain that in newer versions. Mr. Jones 03:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Definition and outline of problem
- Who does this concern?
- Philosophers of mind
- Theologians
- The relationship of body and mind
- Are mind and matter different? If so, how?
- Mental "substance" and physical "substance"
- Another view: Mental "events" rather than mental "substance"
- Mental "events" and physical events
- Relationships
- Differences
- The causation of Brain function (Larry's assertion seems a bit bogus to me; manifestation of an event in the brain doesn't preclude it being non-physical or even not purely the operation of neurons).
- Mental "events" and physical events
- Who does this concern?
- Objections to non-physicality of the mind
- Decisions and actions
- How can the mental affect the physical if it is not physical?
- The mind is exclusively physical (the physicalist view)
- Decisions and actions
- Objections to the assertion that mind is physical.
- Spirituality
- Other objections (please add to this list)
- The apparent determinism of physical systems conflicting with free will
- Non-computability of mental processes
- Aside Quantum mind -- Non-computable, yet physicalist, mind.
- An older view: mind creates the world
- Alternative formulations (aside)
- Processes
- Consciousness
- Other ways of expressing the problem
- By what they can be reduced to
- mental and physical events are totally different, and cannot be reduced to each other (which is dualism);
- mental events are to be reduced to physical events (which is materialism)
- physical events are to be reduced to mental events (which is phenomenalism).
- By what exists "ultimately"
- according to dualism, both mental and physical events exist ultimately
- according to materialism, only physical events exist ultimately;
- according to phenomenalism, only mental events exist ultimately.
- By what they can be reduced to
- Monism
- Materialism and physicalism
- phenomenalism
- neutral monism.
- also
- functionalism (analogy with behaviourism)
- eliminativism
- supervienience
- Dualism (?)
- Philosophers who have discussed this problem, and their views
- Recently
- Karl Popper interactionism
- Patricia Churchland physicalism
- Paul Churchland physicalism
- John Searle physicalism
- Daniel Dennett physicalism
- Douglas Hofstadter physicalism
- Jaegwon Kim physicalism
- George Lakoff physicalism
- David Chalmers anti-physicalist, something like property dualism or neutral monism, AFAIK
- Colin McGinn mysterianism (we cannot know)
- Worlds I, II and III.
- Historically
- Descartes substance dualism
- Spinoza neutral monism
- George Berkeley subjective idealism
- Nicolas Malebranche occasionalism dualism (theistic)
- Gottfried Leibniz pre-established harmony dualism (theistic)
- Thomas Hobbes materialism
- Recently
- Summary of definition
- "The relationship between mental and physical"
- The three traditional positions
- Dualism is the view that mental events and physical events are totally different kinds of events.
- Materialism, or physicalism, is the view that mental events are nothing more than a special kind of physical event.
- Phenomenalism, or subjective idealism, is the view that physical events are nothing more than a special kind of mental event.
- MrJones, this is amazing work. Great job. With this, we should be able to go through each point and write a new version that replaces Larry's Text. It looks like we might have three of us to work on this project -- I'll start this weekend. — Adam Conover † 03:42, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC) (P.S.: I moved this thread to the bottom of the page for readability's sake. Hope you don't mind.)
No worries. There're a fair few more topics to add, like supervenience physicalism, and the topics near the bottom need working into the main structure. I'm not sure the time's right to start writing, but you might like to have a go anyway for practice. I don't know how you work in that respect :-) I am going to do some reading and return to this in a week's time. I will monitor the page as I can in the mean time. Mr. Jones 18:03, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC) OK, this is going to take me a couple more weeks at least. Very interesting to investigate. Mr. Jones 13:36, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Just throwing in a few things into the discusssion. These topics should probably be integrated into the overall discussion - or at least related to the other various sub-topics: Occasionalism - Pre-established harmony - panpsychism. Wikipedia is also missing an article on Property Dualism, which also deserves mention on this page in the Dualism section. One thing I find interesting is how terribly similar Property Dualism and Neutral Monism seem to be - they both are contrary to Physicalism/Materialism and phenomenalism/Subjective idealism. The distinction between Property Dualism and Neutral Monism can be arrived at by making the property/substance distinction from classic metaphysics (I actually think taht the whole monism/dualism debate can be viewed from a property/substance perpspective). Another thing of interest I've seen a 4-point-dial diagram where these various views arranged (see http://www.phil.gu.se/posters/prop.html). --mporch 12:00, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm going to throw another idea into the mix here. What about associating the views of epistemology with perspectives on the mind/body problem? For example, metaphysical materialism has traditionally been associated with epitemological empericism. Just a thought. --mporch 12:23, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Just adding Popper's views on the subject (please correct this if this is wrong).
- Popper argued that philosophical doctrines like materialism and determinism have NO scientific basis in classical physics. Materialism has been undermined by every advancement in physics, from Newton.
- Popper, whose knowledge of the sciences is remarkable, still advocated "common sense" interactionism (dualism), where body and mind interact. Popper also thought the question "what is mind?" is a futile one.
Final sentence
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding here, but the sentence: "Future research may soon reveal the limitations of science in addressing and solving the question of the mind-brain problem." hardly seems NPOV to me. Is there any reason why it needs to be put on the end of the article?