Mind Body Dualism

Student ID # 10837170

Philosophy 100-01
Professor Borges
October 18, 2014 Mind & Body Dualism I am going to argue for dualism, that mind and matter are two different things, one physical and one non-physical. Dualism is the theory that mental and physical or mind and matter are fundamentally diverse from each other. In philosophy, Dualists indicate the radical difference between mental and physical. Dualists oppose the idea that the mind is the same as the brain, and also oppose the idea that the mind is entirely a result of the brain. Dualists look into Leibniz’s Law of Identity to help support the ideology of dualism. Leibniz’s Law of Identity states two things are identical if, and only if, they simultaneously share the exact same quality. The mental does not equal the physical nor the mind the body because they do not share the same properties. Using examples from Nagel’s essay “What Is It Like To Be A Bat”, I am going to argue for dualism by showing that the identity theory, when applied to minds and brains, does not work. In other words, the mind and brain do not share the same exact qualities. Consequently, if the mind and brain are not identical, then the mental does not equal the physical, nor the mind the body. Nagel uses analogies though out his essay to show that there my be truth in something that we may not really understand. One analogy he uses focuses on a caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly. In this analogy, someone unfamiliar with the process of metamorphose locks a caterpillar in a sterile safe. Weeks go by and the person reopens to safe to see that the caterpillar is there no longer and there is a butterfly. He knows that the safe has been closed the whole time but he doesn’t know that caterpillars become butterflies. He cannot obtain the identity relation between the two and why they are actually the same thing. He has reasons to believe that the butterfly was once a caterpillar without having a sense of why it is because the safe is a controlled environment. This analogy agrees with the ideas we have about consciousness. The caterpillar and butterfly analogy of a controlled environment can conclude that we know our mental and physical processes of the brain exist and are related, although we do not understand how they are related. Even though we don't have any evidence to explain the connection among them, we have reason to conclude that the two are identical. Nagel explains that consciousness makes the mind-body problem exceptionally difficult. In Nagel’s “What Is It Like To Be A Bat”, He shows that there is a problem about analyzing consciousness in scientific terms. Nagel believes that conscious experience lies in many different forms of life including animals. He uses bats as a model to identify this. For example, Let’s say that we have all the components that make up a bats neurophysiological detail as well as every account of mental state that a bat may acquire. We also have all of the characteristics of a bats brain and have all the information about a bat’s physical characteristics. Although we have all this information about the bats mental and physical properties, what we do not have, Nagel expresses, is any account of the bats subjective experience. Hence “What it is like to be that bat”. Even though we know everything about that bat, we cannot conclude an account of experience. The difficulty in this is trying to pare the mental events to just physical terms. The mental experience disappears because the mental account cannot be a result of the physical account. In this example we have all the information about the bat, but what we can’t obtain is the bat’s subjective experience because it knowledge based on only that bat. Therefore, consciousness can’t work in this situation because something will about be left out, the “what it is like” experience. Others will argue that the mind and body are the same thing, monism. Two forms of philosophical monism are physicalism and materialism. Physicalism and materialism are closely related. Physicalists believe that everything is physical, that the brain creates mind. Materialists believe that matter is the fundamental substance in nature and that everything known through the senses, including consciousness is an outcome of material interactions. Nagel is not arguing to prove physicalists and materialists wrong but rather saying that there is a problem with the present definition of consciousness. He is fighting for a valid claim that yet knowing every neurobiological process will not show an account for the subjective character of (“what it is like”) experience. He also shows that there may be truth in something that we cannot really understand. Therefore, I conclude that mind and matter are two different things, one physical and one non-physical because they do not share the same exact qualities and if the mind and brain are not identical, then the mind doesn’t equal matter.