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Tyler Cassity

Philosophy 1000

4/27/17

The Mind Body Problem

Have you ever wondered where your thoughts come from? When you think that you

should do something, is it because your mind was told to think that or because your mind is

creating the idea authentically? The general idea is that we have our material part of us (physical

part), and the immaterial part (spirit/soul/mind). Are these two things separate, or the same?

Does one have influence over the other? This question has been wondered for as long as people

could think, and reflect on what the meaning of life is. Most religions hold to the belief that we

have a spirit or a soul, who will continue to embark on a journey after this life. If there is no split

between body and soul though, then what does that mean?

This argument is generally represented by two different approaches; dualism and

monism. Dualism is the idea that both the mind and the body are in fact separate things, and that

somehow they work together to create everything we know about ourselves. The opposite, is

monism, which suggests that everything is one, and there is no division between our mind and

our bodies. Many philosophers have attempted to explain this connection between mind and

body, and I think a common thought that most people have pertaining to this question is

wondering what happens when we die. Does the body die, and the another substance carry on

without it? Is the body just a vessel that our mind or spirit hold on to it? Or is our mind just the

reaction of our physical body, firing of neurons inside of our brains as a simple reaction to our

surroundings?
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The thoughts of dualism and monism can be divided even further for monistic

viewpoints. Monism can be broken into 3 sub categories; physicalism, idealism, and neutral

monism. Physicalism is the idea that the body is greater than the mind, and the mind is just a

byproduct of the physical body. Idealism is the thought that what we know as reality, is all

mentally constructed and immaterial in substance. Our minds are everything, and we are just

perceiving the physical world and all that we see; which would include our bodies. The last view

for monism, is the idea of neutral monism. This idea is that the mind and body are both

extensions from a higher up rational, and that everything the world is made of is processed and

divided to the body or the mind to comprehend. They are both neutral in that they are the two

ways of processing the information. For this project, we will be focusing on idealism, and how

this monist view explains how the human mind is all.

Idealism is the idea that our ideas are the only things that do exist for certain, and its

priority focus is on the mind. Because of this, idealism follows the monist view that the mind is

greater than the body, and that there is no material or physical substances, just what we perceive

to be these things. The only way that anything can ever be real, is if it is perceived and the idea

of the object enters our minds. When the object is no longer in our minds, it no longer exists.

Essentially, consciousness and the contents of consciousness are the only true things that we can

know. This idea is an easy one to grasp, because we deal with our minds all day every day. If we

had to pick one thing that we know to be true, it could easily be that our minds are real.

George Berkeley was one of the most famous philosophers who pushed for the idea of

idealism, or subjective idealism, though he called it immaterialism. He is famously quoted for

the phrase: esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). Meaning the only way you anything can

exist, is if it is perceived. So let us say that we are looking at a tree. As long as I am looking at
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this tree, it is real. In my mind I am perceiving it, and its existence is for certain. What happens

when I leave the tree though? I carry on my daily business and leave the spot with this tree,

where I am focused on something else. Does the tree still exist? If you follow this thought of

subjective idealism; it doesnt.

Now this may sound strange to some people, but lets take a moment to think about what

you are seeing when you do look at that tree. First you may notice the size of the tree, or the

color of its leafs, or maybe even the smell of it; these are all perceptions of our senses though!

The idea is that we can only know what we perceive the way that we perceive it. We only

understand what we perceive because our mind is doing all the work processing it. So when we

think of the mind perceiving our world, or our bodies in that world, all we can know is that our

mind tells us these things. Our mind tells us that tree is there, but only when the tree is on our

mind.

Another example is when people missing a limb, use what is called mirror therapy. Lets

say that a person is missing there left hand. When sitting at a table, they set up a mirror so the

right arm is in sight, and in the mirror, the reflection makes it look like the persons left arm is

there. By moving the right hand, the persons vision may tell them that they are moving both

hands. This can be used to help individuals suffering from phantom pains in the limb that is no

longer attached. So this asks the question, if you trick the mind like this and the pain goes away,

does this support the theory of mind over body?

Now that we have looked at one form of idealism, and how George Berkeley came up

with this idea that could potentially explain the mind body problem; lets look at things from the

other view. If all you know to be existing, is the things that are in your mind, what does that say

about other peoples minds? You have no way to perceive what any other mind is thinking, but
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your own. By following the logic that we used before, if I cannot think perceive your thoughts,

they do not exist; you do not exist. This is philosophers call metaphysical solipsism, and it is one

commonly accepted arguments against the thought of subjective idealism. Your perceptions, and

your realities are the only ones that you can know to be true and that is all you can know. We will

never know what another person is thinking or feeling, and we will never be able to see the way

the perceive the world. How can we know if we see the same blue? Why do you like a smell that

I dislike? We each have our very own independent existences, and they are all we can ever know

to be true.

In conclusion, we do not know how to solve the mind body problem, but we do have

different ideas on how to think about it. As we discussed, subjective idealism is only one of

several ways that philosophers have thought of to answer this problem. There are other views

that support the idea of one controlling the other, and there is the entire other branch that states

the mind and body are both separate and somehow interact with each other. By thinking about

our mind having full control over all perception of what we know, we can follow Berkeleys idea

that perception is the only way that anyone or anything can ever exist. We have the examples of

people overcoming pain by tricking the senses, and we know that the only thoughts we have of

the physical world are what our senses tell us about it. This may not be the perfect answer to this

problem, as we discussed with metaphysical solipsism, but it is only one way that has been

thought of to explain a monist ideal.

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Works Cited

Kim, Sae Young, and Yun Young Kim. "Mirror Therapy for Phantom Limb Pain." The
Korean Journal of Pain. The Korean Pain Society, Oct. 2012. Web.

Soccio, Douglas J. Archetypes of wisdom: an introduction to philosophy. Australia:

Wadsworth, 2016. Print.