The Relationship between Your Mind and Your Body - Essay Example

Introduction Several philosophers have tried to uncover the concept of existence and life but the outcome is always controversial. Although it is clear that human being can be perceived as composed of aspects such as brain and body, this approach is not conclusive in the sense that it does not take into consideration the non-material world such as God. The theory of Cartesian dualism is therefore handy as far as understanding the essence of life in that it takes into consideration both the material and non-material aspect of life. The theory of dualism attests that person is a product of interaction between the mind and the body. The proponents of this theory believed that existence of a person cannot be determined by solely considering the body. This is because the body is mortal and hence it is does not offer much explanation about existence. They claim that though the body has a prime role to play as far as life and existence is concerned, mind plays a key role of directing the functioning of the body. Descartes argues that mind is the basis through which man can claim that he exists. Mind is superb component in that it enables us think and that is why we can claim that we exist. According to Descartes, brain is under the control of mind and has biological role of ensuring that the material being or the body is working properly. Brain responds and perceives the mechanical forces accordingly. I wholly support the idea of Cartesian dualism. According to my point of view, existence and life in general is a product of interaction between the soul and the body. Despite the fact that several philosophical theories have been documented that aims at justifying the concept of existence, I have all the reasons to believe that Cartesian dualism is comprehensive theory in that it takes into consideration both the material and non-material world. To prove this claim, I would give an overview of various theories explaining the concept of existence. Among the theories that would be covered include the parallelism, materialism, identity theory and functionalism. These are the theories that opposes the principle of Cartesian dualism. More specifically the study will focus on the concept that our mind is more than just our brain. This will entail the fact that that our mind has a non-material, eternal attributes and spiritual dimensions. Here the mind, soul or spirit will be considered as the conscious parts that manifest itself through the brain. According to many philosophers the mind is radically different from the body; it’s a “thinking thing”. This study will try to show how the body and the mind can interact if they are different this way. Dualism The theory of dualism attests that man exists in two forms. the first form can be define by material aspect where the focus is inclined to issues such as the brain and functioning of the body parts such as the heart, and other organs. The second aspect which is more imperative is the non-material aspect where the main focus is the soul or the mind. Dualist believes that mind is the basis through which a person can claim that he or she exists. On the other hand, the body or material aspect of existence is under the control of the mind and hence interacts with the external environment based on the desires and the interest generated from the mind (Balog 510). Cartesian interactionism Cartesian interactionism is a theory that was developed by Descartes in an attempt of justifying his theory of dualism. The theory was used to explain how the mind and the body interact. It attests that mind is a controller of the body in the sense that the actions that man does originates from the thoughts. Descartes argues that we act because we think. This means that our actions, which constitute the material aspect of our being are governed by the thoughts, which makes up the non-material aspect of being. Because of this, the theory of Cartesian interactionism is also referred to as causal interactionism. As stated earlier, I wholly back up this theory. The main reason that justify my position is the fact that the theory takes into consideration the eternal life. It takes into consideration the existence of God. Parallelism This is a form of dualism that denies that there is no causal interaction between the physical and the mentality state. The theory attests that the thoughts and actions all originates from the body and that the idea of mental thoughts or mind does not have any significance as far as existence is concerned. The theory further argues that the body is under the control of God. It is the source of ideas. In other words, each individual’s mind gets ideas from God and that these are the ideas making up the individual’s body. Consequently, the issue of relying on the mind as a source of ideas and thoughts does not apply (Balog 513). Materialism This is a philosophy that is maintains that existence is simply explained in material terms. It does not believe on aspects such as soul and mind. the proponents of this theory perceive the world as a big device that’s held together by pieces of matter that are functioning in subjection to natural laws. Usually materialism denies the concepts of special creation, and only relies on the theory of evolution in order to explain itself. I refute this theory in the sense that it is not comprehensive. It does not explain aspects such as existence of supernatural beings. Identity theory This theory holds that the processes and the state of the brain are identical to the mental events. This means that feelings and sensation we get are as a result of specific physico-chemical processes that takes place in the brain and the neural cells. In other words this means that the brain and the mind are identical. This means that the thoughts are as a result of reaction that takes place in our brain. These reactions are conditional (Aranyosi 59). Functionalism The proponents of this theory attests that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not entirely depend on internal composition, but the way it operates, or its role and function in the system of which it is part of. This theory justifies the reason why functional organs such as eye and brain are universally used in all the animal kingdom. In this theory, the basis for truth is the functional features. It does not consider aspects such as size, shape or color Religious argument Many religious individuals are inclined to dualism simply because this theory beliefs in the existence of eternal being that is immortal. This opposes the parallelism theory in that the parallelism claims that the ideas originate from God and are all encrypted in our bodies. Parallelism theory has a weakness as far as religious beliefs because it implies that when a person dies, the God would seize to exist. However, the dualism theory attests that man has an immortal component of being which is mind and the material component which is brain. This matches most of the religious doctrines and hence most religions backs up this theory. Faith-based dualism is controversial in the sense that it is affected by the interaction between the two forms of being. Naturally, the body tend to respond positively to earthly pleasures and desires. This means that it is difficult to acquire strong faith as far as the body is in existence. In other words, the body and mind have different preference as far as life is concerned. Faith-based dualism is therefore almost impossible as much as the mind and body exist together. One would affect the other. Conceivability argument Conceivability argument also called zombie is a very misunderstood argument. The proponents of this theory argues that the expression and sensation of something is as a result of physical properties it has. They claim that a given phenomenon occur as a result of combination of a number of physical concepts. This means that when an individual is presented with specific proposition, then the outcome can be predicted easily (Aranyosi 57). In many scenarios people tend to think that the apparent reason of the difference between mind and the body is real. This due to the fact that they are so enclosed to the fact that the mind and the body a physically mutual things. They believe that the body acts upon the mind and hence the kind of action would determine the results or the consequences. In other words, the result of the interaction can be understood by uncovering the nature of interaction. This means that the difference between the mind and body forms a basis for understanding each one. The morning and the evening star are so relevant to this study because despite the fact that the two stars appear at different times, the mechanism and the physical attributes in each of these stars are virtually similar. This means that understanding one can help in understanding the other (Barnes 515). Arguments against materialism Being a proponent of Cartesian dualism, I have strong belief that the theory of materialism is not comprehensive in that it does explain innate and eternal aspects of life such as love, happiness, God and freedom. It is clear that these mentioned aspects must be originating from a non-material being because it is clear that they are not associated with the earthly things. Arguments against identity theory This theory holds that the processes and the state of the brain are identical to the state and processes of the brain. As far as I am concerned, I refute this theory in the sense that it does not consider the fact that mind is non-material and brain is material thing. The two have different roles and hence cannot be identical. Mind is mainly related to the eternal aspects whereas brain is related to external aspects. Therefore there is no way in which these two things can be identical. This is why the animals cannot think. Multiple realizability is a very influential argument against the identity theory; in that it served in early arguments’ of functionalism. But still the identity theory seems to overrule the multiple realizability; this is because multiple realizability doesn’t distinguish between the brain and the body and how the two really correlate. But still multiple realizability theory should not be ruled out. Chinese room of argument against functionalism Functionalism is a philosophy that holds that the mental state doesn’t depend on the internal constitution but on the way it functions. Chinese room of argument on the other is against the against any possibility true intelligence (Barnes 515). In some cases Chinese room of argument seem to suggest that, if we can stimulate the performance of a Chinese speaker, then we will understand Chinese. According to this argument someone who knows only English but sits in a class alone and follows the English instructions to manipulate Chinese characters, such that to someone outside the class it appears as if the person in the room really understands Chinese. As stated early, the proponents of parallelism beliefs that mind and body functions together as one. However, it is clear that the two are not compatible in the sense that mind operates based on the experience and accumulation whereas brain or the body operates directly with the external environment. The parallelism still suggests that there is a remarkable coincidence between what’s happening in the body and the mind. This is because it so clear that the mind and the body interact at some point, the theory does not explain why if the two do not interact then why it is that, changes occur in them simultaneously and seem counter-intuitive. Argument against Cartesian interactionism This theory claims that the mind together with rest of the body is mechanistic in their principle. The theory believes that the soul or the mind can alter the functioning of the brain and vice versa. However, close scrutiny reveals that the relationship between the mind and brain is not obvious. Nevertheless, there is a point where the two coincide but this occurs rarely (Alter 242). The Causal Closure Argument In most cases human beings tend to think that they can always enlarge their knowledge base by accepting things that are entailed by the things we know. The set of things we know is enclosed in entailment, which means that it follows from what we already know. The argument here is given the correct analysis, knowledge is then not closed. Neural events Neutral events have a physical explanation to the human intelligence. Philosophers have being interested by the neurals connections because they provide an explanation to the classical theory of the mind. It seems that these neurals have separate explanations of physical and mental states.it says that the brain is indeed a neural net formed by massive units but this still doesn’t explain the correlation between the brain and the body (Alter 237). It is generally hard to explain the relationship between mind and body because the two aspects of being operate under different circumstances and have different preferences. Body, for example is more inclined to the physical world and hence act according to the external stimuli. Mind, on the other hand is suppose to be eternal and this means that it does not rely with the external pleasures and desires. Consequently, the two differ on the basis of their operations. This failure to related mind and body motivate many scientist to reject Cartesian interactionism because the basis of this their arguments is the fact that mind and body are causally related The main reason why this argument is uncogent it’s because despite many researches that have being done, there is still no good explanation of the relation between the mind and the brain. Many theories have being developed but still to explain this. However, none of these theories is comprehensive. Conclusion Despite the fact that theory of Cartesian dualism is not properly substantiated by strong premises, I do believe that this is the best theory as far as justification existence is concerned. However, since the operation of the mind cannot be felt or seen, most people tend to overlook it. in reality, mind do exist and has a connection with the body. It is only that people cannot experience the power of mind and hence tend to deny the Cartesian theory. Works cited Alter Toel. On the Conditional Analysis of Phenomenal Concepts. Philosophical Studies, 134: 235–53. 2007. Print. Aranyosi Inervet. Powers and the Mind-Body Problem’, International Journal of Philosophy, 18: 57–72. 2010. Print. Balog Kolard. Conceivability, Possibility, and the Mind-Body Problem. Philosophical Review, 108: 497–528. 1999. Print. Barnes Greg. Conceivability, Explanation, and Defeat. Philosophical Studies, 108: 327–38. 2002. Print. Read More