The logical system of the mind Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The logical system of the mind - Essay ExampleSuppose instead that we deny that the mind is almost mysterious substance, and we hold instead that there are only mental events and that the mind designates no more than a series of mental events We can til instantly inquire about the relation between mind and body in a different way, in terms of the relation between mental events and sensible events. We can ask Are mental events totally different from physical events, so that you cant explain what mental events are in terms of physical events or are mental events somehow explainable as being the same as physical events For example, when John feels a pain, a mental event is occurring now is that pain even possibly the same as something that occurs in Johns point, such as the firing of some special group of neurons Now this question we give examine.The mind-body problem can be introduced more fully with an example. Suppose John decides to walk across the room, whereupon he does in f act walk across the room. ... We dexterity ask How is it possible that a decision, which is something mental, resulted in something in your brain, which is something physical If we say that the mental and the physical are totally different sorts of things, then how can iodin have any causal impact on the other How can a mere mental event, a decision, actually cause neurons in my brain to start firing The very idea might seem absurd.On one view , a better description of the situation is this Johns decision is itself a physical event. When John decides to take my trip across the room, a group of neurons fire in his brain. He is non aware of those neurons but the firing of those neurons is itself only the same as his decision. There isnt any more to the decision than that physical event. So, on the view in question, theres no trouble thinking about how a mental event can have a physical effect mental events are themselves physical. Ultimately, everything is physical.The mind-body p roblem is a philosophical problem, and as such it has philosophical solutions. Those solutions lead to the adoption of a point of view about the mind-body problem, which, in turn, leads to a particular way of dealing with the world. Usually, most of us do not think about our own solutions to the mind-body problem, and, sometimes, we may use different solutions at different times. In the Middle Ages, the mind-body problem was not even identified as a problem, and, therefore, the solution then was completely confounded, meaning that mind and body were thoroughly bound up together in one complex and misidentify bundle.What is the mind-body problem Descartes helped to define it when he noted that if he amputated his foot, he had affected his