The Mind/Brain Identity Theory

At its most basic, the mind can be defined as the faculty of consciousness and thought. H While the basic definition and role of the mind is generally agreed upon, many philosophers disagree on the ontological nature of the mind. Some take the physicalist stance and argue that the mind is a physical element, just like the body, while others take the dualist stance and believe that the mind is non-physical and categorically distinct from the body. In this essay, I will explore the merits and shortcomings of both views, and try to determine which theory is the more plausible account for the nature of the mind. The Mind/Brain Identity theory supports the physicalist view of the nature of the mind. It holds that mental events are the same as
Qualia can be defined as the individual instances of subjective, conscious experience such as pain of a migraine and the perceived redness of an apple. These experiences are ineffable. For example, if we were to meet an alien, who had never and could never, feel pain. To help the alien understand pain, we could explain all pathways, processes, cells and chemicals that are involved in feeling pain. The alien may even be able to learn about the neurobiology of pain in detail, the alien may even learn that pain is generally unpleasant, but the alien will never feel pain. These ineffable, raw feelings and experiences challenge the view of Physicalism as we are unable to connect these experiences to physical phenomenon, unable to explain these feelings and experiences, causing an ‘explanatory gap’. Two people may perceive a shade of blue completely differently without ever realizing or knowing, and therefore dualists believe that if the mind was truly physical and separate from the brain, Qualia wouldn’t be ineffable and therefore there would be no “explanatory
The thought experiment designed to support dualism is logically problematic and therefore fails to adequately demote the mind brain identity theory, and the physicalist view of the mind is favored by Okham’s Razor, as the dualist view, and the theory of Qualia assume the existence of non physical matter. Both criticisms fail to counter the arguments put forth , therefore it is clear that agreeing with the physicalist view of explaining the mind is perhaps the most reasonable stance. This however does not mean that Physicalism is the final answer, or the correct one. It is simply an evaluation of a small part of the