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The Mind/Body Problem

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The mind/body problem questions the relationship between the mental and the physical. As we all know, the mind contains beliefs and desires while the brain is a material substance that contains different structures such as tissues, the frontal lobe, the amygdala, neurons, etc. The whole issue surrounding the mind/body problem is to discover whether the mind and body are one and the same function or whether they are separate objects. Mind/Body Identity theorists claim that these two work as one biological function. This is a problem because if one believes that the Mind and Body are the same function then arguments concerning religion and spirituality would hold no purpose in the realm of philosophy. Philosophers attempt to give light to this problem through Cartesian Dualism--the argument that the mind and body are two separate entities; the body (in which the brain is inside of) …show more content…

Here is a scenario--say one is sitting on a chair and munching on a kit-kat bar. In this moment, the brain is releasing dopamine since the person is enjoying the chocolate bar.(I) However, the person can also be thinking of how much they desire a soda to go with their chocolate bar.(II) In this scenario, the Dualist claims that the physiological constitution of eating the chocolate is the dopamine being released into the brain. However, the mental property is the desire to have a soda with the chocolate bar. Dualism claims that this desire (mental property) has no relationship with the dopamine (physical property) being released into the brain and thus, certain beliefs and thoughts that an individual may have cannot so easily be found during physiological brain states.(III) Taking this into consideration, the objections towards the Dualist argument can be refuted—and thus Dualism is a valid argument.(IV)

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