1. The Mind And Body Problem Mr. DeZilva

2.  Humans are characterised by the body (physical) and the mind (consciousness) These are the fundamental properties  Body = mass of matter; has shape, size, mass and spatial positions Physical properties (such as height) are fact; it is independent of a person’s conception.  Mind = intentionality – thinking about something; seen usually as immaterial

3.  The Matrix addresses the Mind-Body problem  Australian Philosopher David Chalmers said that the minds are in a non- observable universe, but the bodies are still controlled by the minds external to the simulation (similar to the Matrix). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Zd Gmgj0PQ

4.  A fundamental twofold distinction between the mind and the body  “My body is my soul’s proper home. My soul is my body’s proper master” –A Custance

5.  Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) Also known as Substance Dualism Asserts that the mind and matter are fundamentally distinct kinds of substances  Substance  Something that does not require any other creature to exist, and can exist on its own with only God’s concurrence

6.  “I think, therefore I am” Here, Descartes doubts all the empirical data in his mind, and trusts only his rationality.  From this, Descartes concludes that “I can doubt that I have a body, but I cannot doubt that I exist. Therefore, I am not a body”.

7.  The mind is not something that can be shaped or in motion, nor can the body understand or sense anything Human beings are combinations of the mind and the body The mind causes motion in the body (i.e. a hand being raised in class)

8.  Interactionism Descartes would’ve mostly subscribed to Interactionism The body is spatial with no conscious, while the mind is non-spatial and is conscious. The body affects the mind and vice versa – they can interact (i.e. drug use)

9.  Interactionism continued The point of interaction was in the brain  The Pineal Gland The Pineal Gland is the structure in the brain that is not and cannot be duplicated. This was where Descartes thought thoughts were formed

10.  Parallelism Challenges the notion of Interactionism that the Mind and the Body interact The mind and the body are like two clocks, each with its own mechanism and with no causal connection between them, but always in phase and keeping the same time.  One clock would have a face and hands but no bell, while the other would have a bell and no hands or face. They exhibit a harmony

11.  Epiphenomenalism Bodily events can cause mental events, but not vice versa. Thus, the Mind cannot control the body. Electrical impulses move between brain cells and produce “thinking” “imagining” etc.  Thinking and imagining are not the electrical impulses  The Mental is above (epi) those fundamental processes (phenomena) of brain events. Wilder Penfield: “If we liken the brain to a computer, man has a computer, not is a computer”  Man has the ability to achieve a double-consciousness when electrodes were applied to exposed brain tissue.

12.  Gilbert Ryle (1900 – 1976) The Ghost in the Machine The Ghost is the mind and the machine is the body Ryle did not feel that the mind existed and that it only existed as a result of a categorical mistake  The mistake committed when an object or concept that belongs in one category is treated as if it belongs in a category of a different logical type.  “Searching for the University” example

13.  The view that the physical (matter) universe is all that exists  The belief that no part of a person is non- physical; therefore, there is no soul.  The conscious cannot be separated from the brain because nothing exists except matter  Consciousness is no more than electro- chemical events within the brain; it is wonderful aspect of evolution.

14.  Philosophical Behaviourism Similar to that of Dawkins, that all mental events are just referring to a complex pattern of behaviour. Mental terminology as a whole means something physical; behaviour.  Identity Theory The mind and the brain refer to the same object but they have different meanings “I have a pain” and “I have such and such a neural process” don’t mean the same thing, but are identical when evaluating the identity of pain

15.  Functionalism Expressing the mind & body relationship as descriptions of their causal roles Mental states can be defined on their function or “job description”  For example, the “job description” of pain is as a tissue damage detector; this causes trauma, groans, and particular behaviour. The concept of the mental state is an internal state caused by certain sensory inputs and causes certain behavioural outputs.

16.  Moral Responsibility Because all brain events are physically determined takes away from Free Will The illusion of freedom, the actuality of everything being physically determined.  Life After Death Replica Theory (spoken about by John Hick) would be the only scenario that Materialist would say there is LAD.