AryanK
Member
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2010
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Persian
- Home Country
- Iran
- Current Location
- Finland
Hey everyone
So, school has started again and I have to write another English essay now, this time for my self-taught philosophy course and about "mind-body problem". I started off by an introduction paragraph and continued talking about duality in the second paragraph. I will write two more paragraphs tomorrow (I have to write at least 1500 words on this!). Could you please read them and correct my possible mistakes?
Thanks a lot in advance!
So, school has started again and I have to write another English essay now, this time for my self-taught philosophy course and about "mind-body problem". I started off by an introduction paragraph and continued talking about duality in the second paragraph. I will write two more paragraphs tomorrow (I have to write at least 1500 words on this!). Could you please read them and correct my possible mistakes?
Philosophy is very interesting, because whenever you try to answer one question, several new questions occur concerning the same issue! We usually view the mind as the brain and body as something physical, but in philosophy this issue isn’t as simple as it sounds. The Mind-body problem arises from the concept of mind being different than matter. However, from this concept arise a few questions. If mind is different than matter, then what is the nature of it, and how do mind and matter affect each other? Another important question is that is mind part of the reality? If mind is a part of reality and it’s different than matter, then what is reality? These are the questions which intrigued philosophers such as Plato and René Descartes to think about them, and although they have their own beliefs and reasons to defend them, there are still arguments over them. The discussion over the relationship between mind and body is divided into two extensive categories: dualism and monism.
The word Dualism comes from the Latin root of duo which means two. According to this idea mind and body are two separate substances, therefore nothing that is part of the body can be part of the mind, nor can anything that is part of the mind be part of the body. John Locke and René Descartes were among the dualistic philosophers who found this idea. Descartes connected the material and perceptible world to physics and the spiritual soul to metaphysics, believing that these two worlds are in different realities, but they’re both still real. Descartes thought that the metaphysical world of mind is more secure than the physical world of matter, as we are more confident to prove that our thoughts are right, but everything in the external world might be wrong without us knowing it. The movie “Inception” was probably based on a similar assumption which says that the dream (mind) reality is a continuing reality, an independent and stand alone universe from the external world of matter, and the movie also tried to play with the definition of “reality”. There are still a few questions that need to be answered concerning the idea of duality. If mind and body are radically different substances, how is it that the mind and body can interact at all? Descartes was a religious person so he believed that God has given us the power of influencing our bodies using our minds without having contact.
Thanks a lot in advance!