The mind and body problem is something that still has no real answer for it because there are so many answers that cannot be proven in a religious or scientific way. This paper will argue for the notion that the mind and body are separate by favoring the dualism doctrine. As a result, I will discuss Descartes’ view as he denotes it in his argument in Meditations, Ryle’s view of Descartes’ view of the mind and body, Armstrong’s criticism on Ryle, and Turing’s test.
Within Mediations II and VI, Descartes discusses his view of the relation between the mind and body and how the mind is separable from the body. (Green, 2006, p.105) Moreover, he states that the body is able to become divided into parts which is something that one cannot do with the mind. In his dualism doctrine, he states there is an interaction between mental and physical substances. (Green, 2006, p.105) He also states that there is a specific type of body for people, such as a male body and a female body but in the case of the mind, there are no such thing as types of mind since each mind is different from each other so no minds can ever be identical or similar with each other.
To be clearer in how the mind is distinct from the body, the mind is something that cannot be taken and removed. For example, someone is able to cut a limb off the body, but someone cannot cut a limb off someone’s mind. In other words, there is no way of dividing the actual mind. Consider the fact that someone cannot tell you their part of the mind where it lets them think of an egg or the area where they think of dogs or cats, it is simply nothing that cannot be done. In the neuroscience field, there are no brain waves that are able to tell whether the brain states are true or false and as a result, in order to ask what someone is thinking, then someone must be asked. One might argue that this is only the case because technology is not that advanced today that it does not allow us to accomplish this but no matter what, creating an experience involves the use of the mind and it is not something that a biological body can do on its own and by this notion, the division of the two is clear.
As dualism seems like an appropriate mindset in terms of the mind and body, people such as Ryle find it skeptical by using his notion of a category mistake. According to Ryle, a category mistake is a linguistic error in which someone mistakes a word of some type for another. Specifically, this occurs when the similar words imply similar things but not literally the same thing. (Green, 2006, p.109) An example of this notion would be if someone takes the example “Bob hit Mitch” and the value of this sentence depends on the value of the word “hit”. However, if we look at the sentence “Bob hates Mitch” then the word “hate” can be mistaken to be interpreted the same way. The key difference in this example is that the word “hit” is referring to a physical action while the word “hates” refers to a mental action.
In the case of the mind and body problem, Ryle believes that when regarding the mind and body argument, Descartes treated the mind as an object which is considered to be false since the mind does not have any substance, thus he calls it a “ghost of a machine”. (Runes, 1955) Moreover, he claims that this is where Descartes made his category mistake because people would refer to anything related to mind using words such “stuff”, “thing,” and “part” which are the same words that can be used to describe anything that is physical or in the outer environment. In the end, he disagrees with the idea that the notion of dualism states the mind and body are two different logical categories that can work together when they actually belong to each other’s categories
In all ways, Ryle’s view of the relation of mind and body would be similar to these examples of the definition of a university is or what the average taxpayer is. In this case of the mind and the brain, Ryle implies that the mind is a basic construction of a more basic thing. Moreover, this basic thing would be those particular mental states (or mental actions or mental properties). In the end, he created the philosophical behaviorism which is the view that that the mind is not something behind the behavior of the body, but it is simply part of that physical behavior. An example would be that anger would result in angry behavior such as shouting or yelling or fighting someone random in the streets.
In the other hand, people like Armstrong would think differently since his mindset is of that of a materialist. (Green, 2006, p.111) A materialist has the belief that everything is made up of an explainable material or physical thing. (Green, 2006, p.111) Examples of a materialistic view would include: lighting is electrical discharge or that a whale is a mammal.
Armstrong would argue against the view of behaviorism because a person can feel one way but behavior another so there is something more than just behavior. (Green, 2006, p.111) Moreover, he believes that mental states cannot be the same as behaviors but are instead linked to behaviors. In this case, dispositions are the inner mental states that cause behaviors, but you do not have to act on them because it can be all hidden inside your mind without releasing it all in the physical world. In other words, we make the decision whether or not we want to pay attention to our mental states and when we do, we are considered conscious. Moreover, these conscious mental states are dispositions that result in inner states but not on the outer states.
In 1950, Alan Turing made the Turing Test which is a test of a machine’s ability to display intelligent behavior to determine if a computer can imitate human intellect. (Turing, 1950) This only checks for the answers to questions and how accurate these answers resemble to that of a human. In many ways, this machine was meant to answer the question whether machines can think like humans. (Turing, 1950) In the end, the computer may not pass the Turing Test because it was not able to intimate humans as well to the point where people would think the computer is actually a person. (Turing, 1950) It is also important to look at the Chinese room argument by John Searle in 1980 which it purports to answer the question that if a computer is able to have conversation with a person then does it really understand the context of it? (Cole, 2015) The experiment consisted of Searle imaging himself in a room where he claims to represent the computer. Inside the room, he is given random symbols of Chinese writing and later on is introduced the instructions to make a reply. These instructions would represent the program of an actual computer and by following these instructions then the person who does not understand Chinese is able to return the Chinese people outside the room with a reply that would make sense. It is clear that the person who does not understand any form of the Chinese language was able to make a sensible reply by following the instructions or so-called programs that he was given without actually understanding it. Thus, Searle was able to safely to conclude that a program can never give a computer a “mind” to understand no matter how intelligent it may be.
In all ways, I believe that the mind is separate from the body because based on the views of Descartes, the body can be separated but no one cannot take a part of the mind and take a part of it. The mind is something that cannot be taken and removed. Moreover, the idea of dualism can be considered accurate because it is reasonable to believe that the mind and body must work together in order for someone to function at its full potential. When someone goes through the situation of sleep paralysis, it is evident that their mind is awake but no matter what they do, they are unable to move a single part of the body. This to me shows the mind and body are separable because if they were the same thing then both of them would be shut down but they are actually separated in this situation.
The development of religion all consists of a Greatest Conceivable Being (GCB), which is defined as someone who is a being that has characteristics that make this being to be considered perfect. Moreover, each of the major religion all consist of a life after death and that everyone has an immortal soul that is supposedly to live beyond the notion of death. One can say that the idea of an immortal soul can relate to the idea of dualism because the immortal soul can be interchanged for the mind because both of them cannot be divided or consist of physical substance. Although this may not be proof of dualism, it represents a good start.
An objection to this idea would be the idea of split brain and how the possibility of two minds can exist in one body. In this case, there would be a left brain and right brain interacting with each other where they both can argue for the same idea. (Gazzaniga, 1985) The left brain would be the one doing the talking because that is where the speech center is located, thus, this would mean that the right brain would be silent. This abnormal situation then creates a body that consists of two minds but despite of any situation, the two minds still interact with each other because if you cover the left eye and ask someone with split brain what do they say but there is clearly something in front of them, they would respond by saying they see nothing. On the other hand, the right brain would be doing the actions since it can use its hand to pick the object from anything that the left brain cannot see and bring it over to finally give the answer that there is actually something in their hand, thus, confirming the interaction between the two minds. The key point is that no matter how many minds may be inside someone’s body, the mind and body will be separated in order to form any form of movement even if someone is split brain.
Overall, the dualism notion from Descartes seems like the most reasonable one to believe in. Although people such as Ryle might argue for the category mistake that he claims Descartes have made and that the behaviors are linked to action, but Armstrong would argue that mental states are linked to behaviors that are then the reason why physical states occur as a result. The dualism notion is clear with the statement that the mind and body are separate but most importantly, in order for someone to function at their full function then they need both of them in order to do so. This is seen through split brain and sleep paralysis because the mind might be awake but that would mean they are unable to move their bodies which demonstrates this distinction.