The mind body problem is one of the oldest and most important problems in philosophy. It is a problem which concerned the Ancient Greeks, Descartes and those who followed them, as well as those who now pursue modern philosophy of mind. In essence, the problem is based around the distinction between the body and the mind. It is generally assumed that we speak of two different things when we speak of a biological entity called the body, consisting of a variety of different parts and pieces which can be identified and individually studied, and when we speak of a mind.
The mind is associated with consciousness, with thought and with thinking, none of which necessarily bear a direct relation to how we conceive of the body. Despite this, it is evident that there is relation between the mind and the body. Peoples’ minds are not generally considered to continue to exist once their body has died and the material reality of brain damage shows that there must be a real relation between the physical body and immaterial consciousness. How to fully understand this relation, and how to fully understand the way that body can be seen to influence the mind and the and the mind to influence the body is the substance of the mind body problem. The rest of this paper will comment two on possible solutions which have been offered thoughout the history of philosophy and thinking.
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"The Mind Body Problem".
One attempt to solve the mind body problem is to insist that there is no such thing as consciousness itself and that it can never be fully abstracted from the context of the body and the physical world. This may appear in itself to be an absurd proposition, given the lived reality of the experience of consciousness. However, some people have argued that it makes no sense to think of consciousness as an object in the way in which we think of other objects, such as a table or a person’s arm. A certain view of the mind body problem views the mind and the body as two objects which are mutually exclusive. Because, when conceived in this way, the two objects must be considered to be mutually exclusive, it is the case that the mind body problem can be solved by denying the existence of one of these objects. If the mind is redefined as a series of sense impressions and the brain is effectively understood to be a computer which processes this information then it is possible to claim that the mind is not an object, and that it does not stand in opposition to the body. As such, there is no mind body problem to be worried about.
It is also possible to make an alternative argument, although this is currently rare. Historical idealism, when taken its most extreme point, denied the existence of the physical world and claimed that every thing can be reduced to the activity of the mind. Indeed, people such as Berkeley claimed that the real world was only a reflection of their own mental processes. Once again it is possible to claim that, as there is only one side of the problem then there is, in fact, no problem at all.
Neither of these arguments are especially convincing and can be refuted by lived experience. While it can be claimed that the mind does not exist in an objective way, this tells us nothing about the lived experience of having a mind and having a self and therefore it is reducible to a meaningless proposition which, while it is scientifically accurate, does not tell us any truth about the world. Likewise, to deny the existence of the body seems absurd. Again, it may be argued according to a system of logic, however it appears more as a sleight of hand than as a meaningful statement.
In conclusion, the paper has considered the mind body problem as one of the most important in philosophy. It has presented two possible attempts to solve, or rather to collapse, the problem by proving that it essentially empty and involves an misunderstanding of either the mind or the body. However, it has also claimed that both of these solutions present themselves more as tricks of understanding than as statements which can explain our existence. As long as lived experience tells us that there are two things which are experienced as the mind and the body then it is likely that the mind body problem will remain and that it will prove to be an essential investigation for philosophers.
