Questions tagged [mind-body]
The mind–body problem is the problem of explaining how our mental states, events and processes—like beliefs, actions and thinking—are related to the physical states,events and processes in our bodies, given that the human body is a physical entity and the mind is non-physical.
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Can someone shed light on this vintage philosophical paper? [closed]
i would like to ask for some help in deciphering the main thought contained in this fascinating old philosophical paper which somehow eludes me.
It is freely available on Wikipedia and Jstor, ...
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Why haven't philosophers declared the hard problem of consciousness unsolvable? [closed]
Why have philosophers of mind not already accepted mysterianism? The consensus is that the hard problem is fundamentally different from other historical inquiries about science or philosophy, in that ...
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Spinoza on mind and body
If "the mind is the idea of the body" is not causation according to Spinoza why there must be a complex organised body for a mode of thought (that adequately expresses this body) to exist ?
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What is a biological cell philosophically speaking? [closed]
What is a biological cell philosophically speaking?
What is a biological cell? It has a membrane and a nucleus and various parts, but do we really know what it is?
It is viewed under an electron ...
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Is The Mind-Body Problem even a “problem” for reductive physicalists? [duplicate]
What does reductive physicalism have to say about the mind-body problem? Is it a defeater? If so, what kind of ontological or epistemic commitments would one have to make?
If it’s the case (under a ...
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Why was the mind-body distinction made by Descartes such a great innovation?
Why was the introduction by Descartes of the mind-body distinction such a great innovation? In his times there was already a well-formed tradition of conceptual thought ranging from mathematical to ...
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Does physicalism conflict with recognizing individual identity?
In a comment on Serious challenges to materialism or physicalism?, it was claimed that
... if there are two physically identical people, one of them is the physicalist, for him it should make no ...
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How does the brain know about consciousness?
I'd like to talk a bit about the mind-body problem. We all know that intuitive dualism (Cartesian-style or its variations, aka "soul") is being firmly rejected by the academia on the ground ...
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Could mind be substrate-independent like turbulence is?
The question of whether mind can be substrate-independent arises frequently. I was thinking of other things that are, like how light travels without a medium. Another interesting case is turbulence. ...
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Does identity theory “solve” the hard problem of consciousness?
In identity theory, mental events just are certain physical events in the brain. The hard problem of consciousness is about how certain physical events give rise to certain mental events.
But isn’t ...
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Is the notion of a "self" that persists over time an illusion?
If I define "myself" as "my body," my body is constantly changing. At some time t₁, my body corresponds to a specific arrangement of elementary particles. At a different time t₂, ...
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Multiple realizability - Why can we just categorize mental states?
I am unable to understand why we can label mental states. Intuitively I would think that no two mental states are equal. My mental state when I was happy 2 weeks a ago was not the same as when I was ...
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Are there promising scientific research avenues that could ultimately help resolve the debate on the nature of the mind? [closed]
The nature of the mind and its relationship to the body remains a central topic of debate in the philosophy of mind, as evidenced by overview articles such as:
Wikipedia: Mind–body problem
Britannica:...
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Is the experience of love evidence that we are more than bodies and brain chemistry?
The motivation for this question comes from part of the transcript of this video:
So what do you think about that?
You can't measure love, hey? So, I would hope that Destiny, a
romantic, would ...
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Is mind-body dualism falsifiable?
I've previously asked Is epiphenomenalism falsifiable?, which was well-received, so I’d like to explore a follow-up. Are there any versions of mind-body dualism that make testable predictions, thus ...