Is There a Relationship Between the Body and Mind - Essay Example

Is There a Relationship Between the Body and Mind? The explanation or the concept of a body is a common topic to every human being in the world. In our day to day activities we come across a lot of bodies and we generally describe them according to their physical appearance. However, this is not true of the mind. The purpose of this paper is to try and examine the type of relationship that exists between the body and the mind. Are the body and the mind two different things or is it one entity? According to dualism the body and the mind are two different elements. The monism argues that the body and the mind make one physical being. This is the basis of this research project. Dualists assert that human beings are a combination of two different units, the mind and the body. Dualists claim that the body and the mind are not connected and therefore, do not influence the working of each other. Dualists argue that after the death, the mind continues to existing on its own but in incorporeal form while the body putrefies or decays (Wingerter, 2011). One such dualist is Rene Descartes, who is one of the most modern philosophers. He believes that the body an the mind are two distinct elements. He formulated the Cartesian dualism theory that was named after him. The theory was put on the method and the meditation. Descartes, in the Cartesian dualism, claims that a human being is made up of two different elements: the body and the mind. This has been used as a proof why the mind has no immortality. Descartes argue that a human being is totally discrete and different to their material body. Descartes believed that the powers of human reason, a faculty of the mind, is the sole basis of knowledge. According to him, faculties of reason through intuition and deduction are natural characteristics of the human mind. Descartes also argues that the body is similar to a machine that is maneuvered by mechanical schemes, and that the mind has nothing to do with the processes underwent by the physical body. Mind and body and not connected to each other, just like the oyster has no connection with the pearl. To further this, Descartes believes that animals are just “automata” and act without the use of mind or consciousness, and are merely driven by mechanical schemes. This mechanical scheme, as discussed by Descartes, furthers the reasoning that the mind is totally independent of the body. Descartes claims that the brain controls the body mechanically by sending fluids through the neurotransmitters of the brain. This analogy reduces the brain and the body to pure mechanical objects and puts into context that the it is possible for the mind to exist without the body, and the body to exist without the mind. He states that while the body is a non-thinking, extended thing, the mind is the complete opposite as it is a thinking, non-extended thing. Descartes has also given more evidence to prove that the body and mind are two different and disconnected elements but working in partnership. He argues that the body is by itself dividable while the mind does not have such divisible capability. “There is a great difference between the mind and the body in as much as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible” (First meditation). This was the case in the transplantation of organs. If a person was to receive a heart from another person, where the heart is considered as the key organ for a human being’s body existence, the person does not become a new different person because of this. Transplantation shows how the body can be divided into different parts due to donation of body organs. Descartes argues that a person is made of different molecular structures, a variety of fluids, numerous nerves and body networks. Conversely, if a person dies, we are unable to form a construction of their mind. We cannot detach their thoughts into one part and their personality into another part. This shows therefore, that the mind is not dividable. Critics of this view however, argue that after a person dies, one is unable to execute any action, and thinking is simply an action of the mind (Descartes, 2006). Furthermore, critics have argued against this idea of dualism. According to John Locke, awareness can be caused to be irregular by intervals of sleep, anesthesia or a coma. Locke then asks whether awareness is divisible. Locke says that the mind cannot be temporary discontinued and at the same time have thoughts as its essence. To counter this criticism, Dualists argue that the mind contains both conscious and unconscious/subconscious thoughts. They argue that Locke just shows that the mind is not always engaged in the conscious level, but also in the unconscious level. Dualists also argue that the mind will always think, yet it is the memory that fails to maintain the thoughts when a person is asleep or is under the influence of anesthesia. Dualists also state that Locke’s assertions are irrelevant to the debate of indivisibility as the discontinuity that Locke talks of in the consciousness is not a permanent but a temporary one. The debate of indivisibility tries to show that a body is divisible, but the mind is not and consciousness is a temporary aspect. Also, David Hume, in his argument on the indivisibility issue questions the union that consciousness may have. Hume argues that variety of many of our experiences leads to a unity as compared to diversity. If observation leads to knowledge of an individual, then this will lead to a pile of perceptions. On a personal viewpoint, from the Second Meditation, Descartes presents the argument that one cannot be wrong about the mind, while one can be wrong about the body. He argues that there are primary characteristics of an object that are permanent, and there are secondary characteristics of an object that are based on one's perception. Characteristics such as extension, shape, and size are considered primary properties. Characteristics such as sensation, mind, and perception are secondary properties. The material or physical characteristics deal with the laws of science, while the sensation-based or mental characteristics deal with the laws of the mind. Descartes explores this through the parable of the wax He states: Take, for example, this piece of wax. It has just been taken from the honeycomb; it hasn't yet completely lost the taste of honey; it still smells of the flowers from which it was gathered; its color, shape, and size are obvious; it is hard, cold, and easy to touch; it makes a sound when rapped...But, as I speak, I move the wax towards the fire; it loses what was left of its taste; it gives up its smell; it changes color; it loses its shape; it gets bigger; it melts; it heats up; it becomes difficult to touch; it no longer makes a sound when struck. Is it still the same piece of wax? (Descartes 140) Here, it is obvious that Descartes wants to make the point that even if the secondary characteristics have changed (i.e. how one perceives the wax), it is still the same wax. The primary characteristics of a wax that are according to science are still there. Descartes states that while the senses can tell the mind things about the physical world, what one knows of the piece of wax is merely dependent of what the senses perceive. However, he further argues that the senses cannot tell the mind that the original piece of wax and the one placed near the fire are the same wax. Descartes states that it is only the mind that can make sense of what was perceived by the senses, and conclude that it is indeed the same wax. Descartes also further explores the dualism of the mind and the body by expounding on the extension of the physical thing --- in this case, the wax. He states: “Let's pay careful attention; removing everything that doesn't belong to the wax, let's see what is left. Nothing is left except an extended, flexible, and changeable thing” (Descartes 140). He further explains that the mind does not really have all the mental pictures of the many shapes a wax can take form of, thus, understanding the attributes of the physical matter is not merely out of the mind's ability to retain mental images perceived by the senses, but through “mental inspection” (Descartes 141). since the mind does not absolutely depend on the perception received by the senses, then it means that the mind does not depend on the physical body for its existence. As Descartes further states: “Besides, the mind has so much in it by which it can make its conception of itself distinct that what comes to it from physical objects hardly seems to matter” (141). From the earliest forms of dualism, Plato in the Phaedo, which is one of the earliest ever argument supporting dualism. Plato believed that the mind continues to live even after the death of a person. Plato also believed that the mind existed even before the birth of a person. Plato argued this through his Phaedo, where he argued about the metaphysical state of the mind which was set on the last day of Socrates life before he killed himself. Plato equates the body to a prison where the mind is contained or confined. While in prison the mind is forced to examine the truth by way of the body and is unable to acquire knowledge of the maximum, eternal, rigid and non- perceptible substances of knowledge, the forms. According to Plato, forms are universals signify the essences of specifics. When the body is thwarted the mind is compelled to seek the truth through material objects of perception, this result to an incapability to understand that which is most real. Plato argues that we are able to perceive equal elements but not equality itself. We are able to see beautiful things, but we don’t see the beauty itself. In order to attain knowledge or imminent into the clean essences of things, the mind must first of all be pure. The mind must fight and disassociate itself from the body and focus its concentration towards contemplation of comprehensible but at the same time invisible things. Despite the fact that perfect understanding of the forms has the possibility of eluding us in life, knowledge is available to unadulterated mind prior to and after death, which is the described as the disconnection of the mind from the body (Wingerter 56). The Phaedo designed by Plato argues that the mind is capable of existing without the body. Plato’s first Phaedo’s arguments, the argument from the opposites, things that contain an opposite, come to be from that same opposite. For instance if a thing is taller it must have been short one day. If a thing is heavier, one day it must have been light. These processes can move in either direction that is, a thing can be heavier but also lighter. Plato says that, we get awake after having been asleep and as well go to sleep from having been awake. The case also applies to death, since death is a result of living, then living must have come from death. Thus, Plato argues that people must then live after death. During the temporary phase/period between death and the period before rebirth, the mind therefore, exists separately from the body. According to Plato the mind has the chance to sight the forms unhindered by the body in their clean and straight fullness. According to Plato death helps to set free the mind hence increasing its chances of trepidation of the truth. This therefore, makes the mind not to fear death, according to Plato the mind is pleased with the death as it is out of death that it is set free. The Phaedo also argues about the recollection. Socrates argues that the mind must subsist before birth since we can recollect the elements that could not have been erudite in life. According to Socrates we come to know that equal things can seem to be unequal or can be equal in some values but not others. Plato gave an example of people differing about whether two sticks are equal. They may differ whether the stick is equal in length, mass or color. From this view, equality can never seem to be equal. In accordance with Socrates, the sticks are unequal and are trying to be equal but nonetheless do not lack some elements of equality. This therefore, means that if we are able to note that the sticks are unequal, then we must know what equality is. This is also likened by the facts that, one can not notice that a portrait was a resemblance of your grandmother unless one is aware of how your grandmother looked like. Similarly, I must be familiar with the form of equality in order to recognize that sticks are unequal. According to Plato we begin to identify shortly after birth or immediately after birth. This therefore means that the mind was there before birth, and it even lived before it acquired a physical body. On the other hand, Monism school of thought argued that the mind and the body are one and the same thing. According to Neutral monism Metaphysical view, the mental/mind and the physical body are just two ways of explaining the same component that are neutral (i.e. they are neither mental nor physical). This approach refutes that the mind and the body are two distinct items. The approach asserts that the world has only one kind of material, in the type of neutral elements which are neither mental nor physical. The neutral elements can have the properties of color and figure just like we come across these properties in our activities. These properties do not exist in mind they subsist on their own (Tikhanov, 2009) Bertrand Russell argues that James William, who was an advocate of monism, was correct in declining consciousness as a unit, and the American realists were partly right. Russell argued that the body and the mind are composed of impartial materials which could not be separated. According to physicalism, they argued that everything that persists are not broad than its physical belonging. Thus, there are no kinds of things other than corporeal things. According to exclusion theory, the idea of a person having the urge to lift one’s arm is a mental occurrence and the actual lifting of the arm is by itself a physical occurrence. This means that mental events are superior to mental events. The concept of epiphenomenalism suggests that, mental occurrences happen from the physical occurrences, but the physical happenings are not as a result of mental events. This therefore, means that if x does not lead to the occurrence of y, then one cannot verify that x really exists. Those who subscribe to epiphenomenalism gives an example of smoke in a factory which produced out of the operation of the factory, but the smoke does not in any way affect the running of the factory. They therefore, argue that thinking or mentality is out of the operation of the body, and it is consequently an element of the idea that the body and mind are inseparable. Eventually, in spite of the many views from the dualists and monists, it is difficult to have a definite answer about the sort of relationship that subsists between mind and the body. This kind of question will always have divergent answers. In my opinion I think the mind and body are two distinct elements as described by Descartes’. The mind can exist by itself as it does not depend on the body for its survival. Works Cited Cunning, David. Argument and persuasion in Descartes' Meditations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Descartes, Rene?, Roger Ariew, and Donald A. Cress. Meditations, objections, and replies. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2006. Tikhanov, Galin. Gustav Shpet's contribution to philosophy and cultural theory. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 2009. Wingerter, J. Richard. Living beyond the one and the many: silent-mind transcendence of all traditional and contemporary monism and dualism. Lanham, Md.: Hamilton Books, 2011. Read More