Glimpses of the Mind

Mind – Body

The power of the mind

Does the mind have powers that we hardly suspect? Are there forms of mental access to information outside the normal realm of physical signs, signals and channels of communication.

Look at a card without seeing it and using the power of your mind try to visualise the colour.

‘First thought, best thought’ Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

Watch and discuss

1. Daniel Tammet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss

2. Rain Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=vqbXPfaN_VM

The interior life of the individual

There is an interior theatre of thoughts and feelings, sights and sounds that each of us experience in solitude.

But we can touch and be touched. In our souls. Not just in our bodies.

We can reach out from our interior and make things happen in our world.

Other minds can be linked to ours.

Philosophical Views of the Person

There are various philosophical views on what a person is but we are interested in two

1. Monism2. Dualism

We will be looking at each and exploring the problems that arise

Monism

Monists are philosophers who believe that all of reality, everything that exists, falls into one and only one basic category of being. There is, according to monism, only one fundamental sort of substance in existence. In contemporary physics, string theory is the most recent version of monism. The idea that everything is ultimately composed of one-dimensional strings of energy – whatever exactly that means.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0Kaf7xYMk

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTxoM5QvruY

Two main forms of monism – 1. Materialism 2. Idealism

Materialism – The view that all that exists is matter, configured into material objects. On the materialist view, there are no minds or souls or immaterial spirits. Physical matter is all that exists.

Idealism – Is the view that all that exists are minds and ideas in minds. According to the idealist, matter is an illusion projected by our minds. All of the physical universe is just bundles of ideas, a virtual reality, perhaps produced by the mind of God. Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the greatest of all the idealists. Although not popular today it is a very difficult theory to refute and has become increasingly popular today as a result of developments in physics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZXfqW13Lcg

The Idealism of Berkeley

All that exists are minds and their ideas

There is no such thing as matter

There are no material objects, just ideas of them

‘To be, is to be perceived.’ The chair on which you sit is just a

bundle of perceptions in your mind The room and all its contents cease

to exist when we all go home in the evening

Everything in your field of vision ceases to exist the moment you close your eyes

For Berkeley this is really the case. However, everything exists in the mind of God and that is what keeps everything in existence

Food for thought - Solipsism The weird and wonderful philosophical view that

‘Only I really exist’.

Solipsism explained

Solipsism is the philosophical idea that one's own mind is all that exists. Solipsism is an epistemological position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a sceptical hypothesis.

Interesting video clips dealing with the issue of mind/brain/humanity/solipsism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isv0vHsaIdQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_9-k_X5orA&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6CQJqKNS-c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHfs7OQ_Cwk&feature=related

What problems does idealism pose?

What does all this say about me, about you, as entities in the world?

What are we? Are we minds? Are we bodies? Are we both? What is it to be a person?

Materialism

Materialism, as a view of human beings, is just the claim that we are our bodies and nothing more. There are no non-material minds or souls, or thoughts, or sensations. Everything that exists in a human being is a material entity or material process involving only matter and its functions.

Four types of materialism1. ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM There are no such things

as thoughts and pains and itches.

There are just brains and neural events.

3. ANALYTICAL BEHAVIOURISM

2. REDUCTIVE MATERIALISM Thoughts and sensations

exist but they are reduced to or identified with neural events, states, and processes.

4. IDENTITY THEORYAlthough there are different types of materialism, it is enough to grasp the fundamental materialist claim that we are all just hunks of meat. Interesting and complex meat, but meat only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFZTAOb7IE – They’re made out of meat by Terry Bisson

Dualism

Dualists believe that there are two kinds of substance in existence. There are minds as well as bodies. There is spiritual stuff as well as material stuff.

Dualist philosophers like Descartes believed matter or physical substance to be characterized by such properties as extension and mass. Mental substance is characterized very differently. Minds are in time ut they are not in space. They do not have extension (length, height, breadth) or mass. They have no 3 dimensional spread or solidity. They essentially think. That is their nature. A very different sort of reality from any physical object.

Dualism and Human Beings

We are all composed of mental and material stuff.

Human beings are two-fold being both mind and matter.

Reality is also two-fold and made up of both material and mental substance.

This is why Descartes teaching on dualism fits nicely into the dominant teachings of the church back in the 17thCentury

There are 3 versions of dualism

Interactionism Epiphenomenalism Parallelism

Interactionism – The most common type of dualism

Most dualists are interactionists The mind and body exists as separate

entities but they can and do causally interact with each other

Some bodily events cause mental events Some mental events cause bodily events I can decide to kick you in the shin, and that

mental event – the decision- can cause a physical act, the kick.

Likewise, the physical event consisting in the kick, will cause the mental event – of pain.

Epiphenomenalism

Another version of dualism The mind is a by product of the mind – an epiphenomenon It plays no causal role in initiating any bodily events

whatsoever Bodily events can cause mental events but mental events

cannot cause bodily events Therefore, if I kick you it will cause the mental event of

pain but it wasn’t a mental or non-physical decision that brought about the kick.

It was neural events of the brain which brought about the decision to kick

The inner decision or feeling of intention to kick is just a by product of physical processes consisting of one set of neural events producing another set

Parallelism

Mental events cannot cause bodily events Bodily events cannot cause mental events The mind and body are complete cut off from one

another and exist parallel to each other without any causal interaction

Parallelists deny light waves cause visual imagery and sound waves cause sounds

The harmony that exists between both mind and body in this view is because of a divine power – God

God allows for mind stuff to be separate from physical stuff and yet enables them to function in harmony