The Nature of Mentality - Essay Example

Sur Supervisor The Nature of Mentality Cartesian Dualism proposes that mind and body are two different entities. The view was originally proposed by Rene Descartes. Mind is a thinking entity that plays a key role in deciding the behavior of the body. Thus, mind is a distinct object – separate from body. This separateness between mind and body has been given the term dualism. This duality does not exist in animals. That means animals do not possess mind entity and they are cent-percent organic machines intelligently designed by nature. Descartes says body is mortal but not mind. Mind continues its journey even if the body dies. In other words, mind is an immaterial part while body is a material part and both come together to form an organic entity. As per Descartes, mind can exist without body and so is the case with body. They can exist separately and mindless body is a possibility as can be seen in animal kingdom. Descartes argues that since he can think it proves that he exists. He further believes his all ideas must have some origin as they cannot come on its own and that is the strong reason for God to exist. Descartes argues in favor of God that is all-good and all-powerful. Intelligent Designer – a Weak Argument Paleys argument of intelligent designer has similar reasoning when he presents an analogy of watchmaker. As it is difficult to conceive for a watch to come on its own – without any of its maker, how can universe form without its creator? But this line of thinking has many critics such as Kant who agrees to the existence of a divine architect but not necessarily as a creator of the world. Teleological arguments though appear logical yet they are not complete in themselves. It is true that watch cannot exist without its maker but that does not establish that materials used in the watch such as plastic, aluminum or copper are also made by the same watchmaker. Teleological arguments infer more than what is actually available as evidence. Humes view point also support this line of argument that people tend to infer too much from the evidence that nature presents. Arguments by analogy and parallel reasoning may have this kind of fallacy. Descartes’ argument about God as All-Good, All-Knowing, and All-Powerful are not palatable as Hume states that no empirical evidence is available to prove it. In nature, myriads of imperfections such as starvation, epidemics or diseases, natural calamities, suffering, child deaths exist since time immemorial. ‘Innocents suffer and guilty roam freely’ is a common observation. Aquinas cosmological argument is an attempt to prove the existence of God; however, the theory does not hold much ground because it is based on certain assumptions and for that there is no evidence. Natural Selection Process – Scientific Evidences Available The Theory of Evolution, to a great extent, provides some plausible answers how species evolves given to favorable environments; however, Darwin as a proposer of the theory of evolution also argues that intelligent design theory and the theory of evolution both can be compatible with each other though it appears to be contradicting each other. It could be the Gods design to allow life to evolve in the way as the evolutionary theory postulates. Nevertheless, the theory of evolution is certainly superior to the theory of design as it does not propose a single line explanation for all happenings such as "God designed things that way". The major difference between them is that the evolutionary theory can predict the future adaptation of species while the intelligent design theory cannot. In a way, the theory of evolution by natural selection disputes the theory of dualism more authentically. The theory of natural selection proposes how myriads of species evolve over a very long duration – to the span of hundreds of thousands of years, in a very slow process, following the ‘best fit’ principle. Physical body of each species is made of cells and each cell contains a genetic coding in the form of DNA. The DNA of a particular species provides all typical traits to the offspring of the species. Periodic changes in DNA give way to the new traits to the offspring and thereby, to the new species. New traits could be advantageous or disadvantageous that depends on the prevailing environment. Those who fit best in new environment tend to survive while others get lost. Through the principle of natural selection, the advantageous traits evolve and prosper while disadvantageous ones elope gradually. It is not a conscientious selection process of nature at all. New species are created not through any thought process of mind. The process of natural selection never stops and continues for ever. In nature, this happens at a very slow rate taking casualties of several species in the process. Mind Not an Object but a Source of Numerous Capacities Then, another school of thought comprises of thinkers such as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Austin, and Gilbert Ryle come forward with a theory commonly known as Behaviorism. Ryle asserts that it is just a fallacy of language that causes one to believe that body and mind are two separate entities. Thinkers from this school of thought are more inclined to removing conceptual confusion rather than proposing any doctrines. According to Ryle, most philosophical issues can be resolved by correcting language and logics that are employed. Behaviorism not only disputes Descartes’ dualism but also suggests a way to understand human mentality. Descartes philosophy due to its dominance for almost three centuries is known as the official doctrine among thinkers. Ryle draws our attention towards a mistake in the theory of dualism of Descartes. According to him, it is a mistake to put mind in the category of thing. He says that mind cannot be defined in terms of thing rather it needs to be defined in terms of its capacity to perform intelligent acts with the help of brain. According to behaviorism, mind has its own characteristics properties, processes and states. Human beings are different than other species in their capacities of mind leading to acquired behavioral skills such as math skills, language skills, logical reasoning. Not only emotional utterances but also beliefs and desires form a part of individuals behavior. However, behaviorism fails to explain conscious experiences and ongoing thoughts authoritatively. Mind Not a Separate Entity but a Part of Brain John Searle proposes a simple solution to the mind-body issue. According to him, thinking is a function of the brain that includes central nervous systems in the same way as digestion is the function of stomach and related organs. Digestion is a chemical process that happens in stomach; stomach provides necessary environment for digestion to take place. Similarly, thinking is a neurophysiological process that takes place in the brain. That means all mind activities are an integral part of brains. However, his thesis “Mental states are both caused by and realized in states of the brain” has the same linguistic fallacy that Ryle has asserted in his theory. ‘Caused by’ indicates mind and brain are separate while ‘realized in’ does not consider them separate. In a way, there is contradiction in Searle’s thesis. Searle asserts that brain and its all functions are not understood by scientist fully and that is why many people are inclined to consider mind and brain processes as separate. With further advancement to understanding brain functioning, it is likely that thinking process in itself will be considered an integral part of the brain functioning. To that extent, dualists are certainly wrong in their perception that mind is a separate entity outside the brain. Materialism – Correlates Mental States and Brain States According to Smart, the proponent of materialism, "mental states should be identified with certain physical states in the brains of the relevant individuals". Accordingly, mental states boil down to states of the brain and they are not different. That means without a specific brain state, mental state cannot be reached. However, materialism too has a fallacy here because two persons with different physiology and physical state can have the same kind of mental state. Functionalism – Animals too Possess Intelligence While materialism identifies mental states with physical states in the brain, functionalism relates mental states with functional states of the brain. Functionalism goes farther than materialism and it correlates each mental state with functional states of the brain. The crucial thing is that functional states can be realized in a variety of different physical states. In other words, it is the functional state of the brain that evokes a specific response. Fodor asserts on having a language of thought process in not only humans but animals too and that could be in the form of symbols. Since animal behavior can be successfully predicted, it can be safely argued that animals do possess some level of intelligence through which they conduct their thought process. Scientists have already provided numerous evidences of animal intelligence through their experiments and to that extent functionalism better explains the nature of mentality. The ongoing research on developing artificial intelligence has a biggest question whether machines can have mental states. That is possible if data (machine) can think intelligently like humans. If that becomes so then one can say that machine have a mind. With speed and programming power that machine has been endowed with it can be said that machines are improving. Currently, machines match and surpass physical states of the human brains but what they lack is the functional states of the human brains. If the machines are endowed with mind, known as artificial intelligence in scientific parlance, successfully in future then that will be a last and final jolt to the theory of dualism. Read More