The mind-body problem has been a part of a debate in academic history. It can be explained based on a premise when your friend gets a brain transplant… where is he now? Most psychologists would say that he would be in the body which now hosted their brain. This response states that we are the brain which has been validated with numerous literature (Hampton, 2010). For example, brain damage can lead to profound changes in one’s personality. On the other hand, introducing psychoactive substances like alcohol or LSD into the brain can affect one’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. These claims and observations give us a materialistic perspective that says that the mind arises from the brain.
This made sense hitherto the question: Why does it makes sense to say that I have changed my mind, but it doesn’t make sense to say that I have changed my brain? For instance, I say that I have changed my mind on what I want to eat tonight. Now suppose, I say that I have changed my brain on what I want to eat tonight. Can you see that the two sentences are not the same and imply different things? If you do then we can say that ‘brain’ and ‘mind’ mean two distinct things. This gives us a conclusion that even though the mind might arise from the brain, they are two distinct things. This builds a foundation for the mind-body problem. This problem arises when we ponder on the thought that how can an immaterial thing like the brain influence the mind and vice versa.
Rene Descartes is the father of the mind-body problem in the late nineteenth century when he suggested that the mind and brain interacted with each other via the pineal gland. Anyhow, in his ‘Mind-body Dualism’ thesis, he argued that the brain and body are two separate things. He says that the mind is non-extended and thinking (res cogitans) while the body is extended and non-thinking (res extensa) (Descartes, Moriarty; 2008). He concluded that he is res cogitans (an un-extended conscious entity) but his reasons remain unconvincing (Long; 1969).
Many solutions to deal with this problem have come up in the field of philosophy and psychology. One that you may have heard in psychology is Behaviorism. Its states that if psychology is to be a science it must reject the idea of an unseen and unverifiable existence of mind (the black box) and only focus on the observable and verifiable which is human behavior (Watson, 1930). Behaviorism works under the idea of materialism which states that reality is only made up of physical matter.
A theory that oversimplifies materialistic position Is the mind-brain identity theory which states that we identify physical states of the brain as mental states or experience (Lewis, 1966). i.e., if we are in pain it is only due to the conditions of certain neurons of the brain (brain state). Eliminative materialism is another theory that risks the oversimplification of materialistic positions which says that mental states do not exist at all. It states that our common-sense psychology framework is incorrect and is often misleading which conceptualizable the nature of cognitive activities (1984, Churchland) i.e., we saying ‘I am happy’ is just reporting the physical properties of the brain (level/ activity of serotonin and dopamine in the Central Nervous system) (Hampton, 2010). Both of these positions argue that brain states and mental states are the same things.
Gilbert Ryle came up with another solution in his book ‘The Concept of Mind’ (1949) which points out the absence of mind, he states that the mind is just a way we report mental events. It does not exist above any mental events as a separate thing. In his book, he introduced the term ‘category mistake’ which is basically our tendency to assign a label to a collection of things and consider the label as something beyond the collection of things itself, giving it an ontological status and life, which is the same thing we do to the label ‘mind’.
Lastly, the double-aspect theory (or double aspect monism) states that mind and body are two sides of the same coin which gives rise to a whole. Thus, we are made up of both mental and physical properties. For example, we don’t face any discrepancy when someone tells us that they are on the couch and they like the couch. In this situation, the person makes reference to their physical self as well as their mental self. The orientation of this theory was from Benedict de Spinoza’s metaphysics which states that mind and body express themselves in infinite ways in god’s intellect which is infinite (Hallet, 2013). Additionally, the mind is a ‘knowing agent’ because the mind knows itself only in the act of knowing something other than its own self. Thus, the mind knows itself by knowing the body and thus becoming whole (Hallet, 2013). As a result, Strawson (1959) validates the double aspect theory (Snowdon, Paul, and Gomes, Anil, 2009) and suggests that this theory solves the mind-body problem as well as explains why it arises.
References:
· Descartes René, & Moriarty, M. (2008). Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the objections and replies. Oxford University Press.
· Hallett, H. F. (2013). Benedict de Spinoza: The elements of his philosophy. Bloomsbury Academic.
· Hampton, S. (2010). Essential evolutionary psychology. SAGE.
· Lewis, D. K. (1966). An argument for the identity theory. Journal of Philosophy, 63(1), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024524
· Long, D. C. (1969, January 1). Douglas C. Long, descartes’ argument for mind-body dualism — philpapers. Philosophical Forum. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://philpapers.org/rec/LONDAF
· Paul Churchland — eliminative materialism — danielwharris.com. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.danielwharris.com/teaching/201/Churchland.pdf
· Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
· Snowdon, Paul and Anil Gomes, “Peter Frederick Strawson”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/strawson/>.
· Strawson, P. F. (1959). Individuals: An essay in descriptive metaphysics. Methuen.
Watson, J. B. (1930). Behaviourism. Norton
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