Are Persons Bodies?

The so-called mind-body problem, the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in the philosophy of mind, though there are many issues concerning the nature of mentality which do not involve its relation to the physical. Through out this essay I will cover the main arguments of the mind-body problem. I will do this by researching into different opinions of the main schools of thought. It is important to first of all be able to distinguish between the mental and the physical. A physical property is one that is instantiated but not always available to one individual. A mental property is one that is not initially instantiated but one individual has the knowledge and access to discover weather it is instantiated when others do not. There are many that would disagree with this general overview.

Dualism is a major school of thought that has attempted to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism believes that there is a separate existence of mind and body. Some dualists believe that the mental characteristics are just different types of physical characteristics and that it is not reducible mental phenomena.(Searle, J, 2004) It is also argued that mental and physical seem to have quite different properties. Mental events have a definite subjective quality, whereas physical events of course do not. For example, what does a cut feel like? What does green grass look like? Dualists believe that this would be unlikely to be reduced to anything physical.

The mind, according to Descartes, was a "thinking thing" and an immaterial subatance. This "thing" was that which made him think, feel, and believe. I have a clear and distinct idea of myself as a thinking non-extended thing, and a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended and non-thinking thing. Whatever I can conceive clearly and distinctly, God can so create. So, Descartes argues, the mind, a thinking thing, can exist apart from its extended body.(Decartes,R,1984)

Interation dualism is the view that mental states, such as hopes and beliefs, interact with physical states. For example; Janet has a clear idea of her mind as a "thinking thing" which cannot be measured and he also has a clear and idea of his body as not able to think. It follows that mind and body are not identical because they have very different properties, according to Descartes.(Decartes, R,1984)

Functionalism in priniciple have related beliefs to behaviourlism, in that they try to avoid talking about the mental and prefer to call it behaviour. Some behaviourilst believe that the mental does not exist at all. Functionalism basis its theory on the idea of that beliefs, desire and being in pain etc come from the idea of sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. From this theory I could be said that they are able to be work in various systems, even perhaps computers, so long as the system performs the correct functions. Mental states can be seen as having the same propertys as a valve

it can be made of plastic or metal or whatever material, so long as it performs the proper function (say, controlling the flow of liquid through a tube by blocking and unblocking its pathway).(wikipedia) There has always been a strong

cnnection between functionalism and artificial intelligance, one of the first people to put this theory forward was Hilary Putnam, this was called machine state functionalism, which describes the mind and a computer to be able to perform the same functions. One theory was called the universal turing machine, this was a visualization of a long tape divided into squares (this represented the memory) with a scanning device placed over the tape and scanned one square of memory at a time. Each square is either blank (B) or has a one written on it. These are the inputs to the machine, it has numourous possible outputs.(wikipedia) In machine-state functionalism, it claims that the turing machine has the same characteristics as the mind, in that one state for the machine, given an input of (B), the following happens, just as being punched causes a person to say "ouch". (wikipedia)

Physicalisim has the belief that the mind is mearly a specific part of the body, the brain. Any "state of mind" is just a state of the brain. There is a strong belief that mental events are the same as physical events, there are no things other than physical things.

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