The mind-body problem

What links "the conscious mind" to the body? It's hard to see the connection between neurons and an actuall conscious mind. We know exactly what a nerve cell consist of, down to the last molecule. And the brain consist primarily of nervetissue. How can it be that these explainable things creates something as unexplainable as a conscioussness?


A common belief is that we consist of something beside our body. A soul, which is an imortal being. Something which doesn't exist in the physical universe. The question in this case is: How is the body and the soul connected?


Others might believe that there is no such thing as a soul, and there exists nothing beside the physical universe. And that the consciousness is like a complex machine.


Someone else might say that there exists nothing but the physical universe. Still not all things (like the consciousness) can be meassured as a physical quantity.


Another theory states that all atoms are conscious, and the special buildup of the brain materalizes this consciousness.


Maybe there doesn't even exist a physical world. And our conscousness exists in a sort of illusion. (I saw that islamic propaganda movie)


Wikipedia has an article about the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-bo...d-body_problem
Still, it's kind of confusing....


I think this is a very interesting branch in philosophy. Anyone else who has some thoughts about this ?

(sorry about the poor english. Hope you understood what I meant)

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Originally Posted by Crumbs

What links "the conscious mind" to the body? It's hard to see the connection between neurons and an actuall conscious mind. We know exactly what a nerve cell consist of, down to the last molecule. And the brain consist primarily of nervetissue. How can it be that these explainable things creates something as unexplainable as a conscioussness?


A common belief is that we consist of something beside our body. A soul, which is an imortal being. Something which doesn't exist in the physical universe. The question in this case is: How is the body and the soul connected?

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I believe that we exist as a soul, but I think it was somehow created by the neurons in our brains. We have several sections in our brains that control what our tastes, emotions, morals, etc... are. It dictates our instincts and controls our actions. The soul is basically a by product of our neurons working.

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Others might believe that there is no such thing as a soul, and there exists nothing beside the physical universe. And that the consciousness is like a complex machine.

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If we were nothing but a complex machine, we would still be a machine, meaning that we would have no emotions and no morals. Though, there may come a day where robots could not be considered as machines either b/c they too have emotions, desires, free will (well, as much free will as can be had in this world), etc...

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Maybe there doesn't even exist a physical world. And our conscousness exists in a sort of illusion. (I saw that islamic propaganda movie)

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They must have watched The Matrix a few too many times. But seriously, how do we know that life isn't just an illusion? We may not actually exist. Now there's a scary thought.

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If we were nothing but a complex machine, we would still be a machine, meaning that we would have no emotions and no morals.

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So if we did create a intelligent machine it would kill everyone.

My belief is that we are spirits that use the brain as a switchboard to control the body. The spirit is an invisible force that can cause things to happen in the physical world kind of like a magnet can cause things to move.

I don't think it is possible in an only-physical universe for something to be aware of anything.

Metaphysics rocks!

Anyways, here are some of my thoughts :)

I believe that we can speak of human persons in one of two ways.
1- As a material object. I am 5 feet 9 inches tall. I weigh 180 pounds. I have light skin. Brown hair, etc etc.
2- The personal conscious self. When you think, you think as yourself, and can rightly say "I think ....." I believe that this is an immaterial soul.

There are a few marks of all things material:
1- All material things take up space. This is obvious and clear.
2- Material things are made up of parts. This also seems clear. If something takes up space, it can be divided in that space. An interesting and important note here, is that even if we find something that INFACT cannot be reduced (the smallest particle), we can still imagine in being divided into parts in our head.
3 (maybe)- All things material can be sensed using the 5 senses. This is less obvious, so you are free to reject it, but I believe it to be true.



Anyways, with that in mind, I think there are a few reasons why we can say that the personal self is immaterial:
1- It does not make sense to speak of the personal self in material terms. How tall is my conscious self? Is my conscious self a gas or liquid? These questions seem absurd! The rational assumption is that these questions are absurd because our personal conscious selves arent material.

2- The conscious self is not made up of parts. If I have my hand cut off, part of me is missing in the sense of a person as a body. But you can cut of say, the visual part of my brain, and I dont say that I am half of me now. An important distinction here is that we do have powers, for example intellect and will. But I dont think with half of myself and love with another. ALL of myself thinks, ALL of myself loves.

3- The conscious self does not act like material things. One of the unique abilities of the human person is self reflection. In our self reflection, the object and subject of the reflection are 100% the same. Material things cannot do this. For example, and eye that is reflecting on its self needs distance, the human person does not. A carpet can fold on itself and have one corner reflect on another corner, the human person does not do this.

4- The conscious self is unique and unrepeatable. The more material something is, the more repeatable it is. Take a rock, you can replace that rock with another rock and its is pretty much the same. As we move up, we goto material things like beetles. You can take one and replace it, it is easily replaceable. The human person is not replaceable because it is less material, so much less material that I think that it is not material at all!

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I believe that we exist as a soul, but I think it was somehow created by the neurons in our brains. We have several sections in our brains that control what our tastes, emotions, morals, etc... are. It dictates our instincts and controls our actions. The soul is basically a by product of our neurons working.

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I would claim the opposite. The brain is a tool that our soul uses. It is like a computer, capable of several functions, but ultimately it is not the computer doing the work, it is the user / programmer. I use my brain to feel, smell, see etc. I think it is a bit bizarre to think of those senses in my brain created the personal conscious self. Feel free to expand on what you mean though if I am reading what you meant wrong ;)

I would also add that I think it is vital that our brain exists, our soul is dependent on it (at least our soul being in our body). If our brain heats up to 200 degrees, we die. This is not because the soul is in the brain, but because it needs it. Dependency does not prove that it is from the brain.

Simple. The parts of our brain interact with each other to create a consciousness. One part of the brain is like the place that interprets the data (I think its called the Thalamus, but don't quote me on that), And that is basicly the consciousness. For different problems, it turns to different parts of the brain.

Are you sure? i've yet to read we know what consciousness is. I hope we do in my lifetime, hopefully it will be something cool.:D

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A common belief is that we consist of something beside our body. A soul, which is an imortal being. Something which doesn't exist in the physical universe. The question in this case is: How is the body and the soul connected?

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God, i wish i could be alive forever. I don't wanna die and that's it. What a waste! what about a baby that dies hours before she/he is born? what a waste...baby will have a few hours of life and then never exist ever again.:shock:

Consciousness is not and entity or a thing; it is a word created by humans to describe the way our brain receives and interprets sensory data from the outside world, and governs our reactions to that input. It is a very complex system which we still do not fully understand. The concept of a soul is a simple and outdated explanation for consciousness. I believe that considering the knowledge humanity now possesses about the human body, evolution and cosmology that the idea of a soul is unnecessary, and unlikely.

I believe that the idea of a soul is still popular for a number of reasons:

a) fear of death - the idea of a soul gives false hope that consciousness survives death. Our consciousness is obviously not able to imagine what it would be like if it did not exist. Try it. Since it is unfathomable, we fear it.

b) the inherent arrogance of humanity - we feel that we are the most important species in the universe. I believe this stems from evolution and the basic self-preservation mindset: the most important person in this mindset is number one! The idea that there is something inside us which transcends the physical (i.e. the soul) fans our ego.

(This is what i believe and i apologize if i offend anyone, just so you know i firmly believe everyone has the right to their own beliefs)

Yeah I'm studying mental representation and consciousness in philosophy at university at the moment, and I must say that it's one of the most interesting (and complex) courses that can be taken. In short, there are many, many different theories of concsciousness - what it is, how it is achieved, why it exists etc - and as soon as one is proposed it seems that another theory is ready to challenge and disprove it.

The most basic categories when it comes to theories of consciousness are probably the dualist/materialist divide. Dualism is the idea that there is a 'soul' or an aspect of consciousness that is not physical. This might be the simple, religious view that each person has a soul that leaves the body upon death to go to heaven/ be reincarnated or just the view that conscious phenomenon cannot be explained in entirely physical, material terms.

Dualism is very outdated. One of its most famous champions was Decartes (I think therefore I am,) but many of his theories and ideas have been dismissed by modern philosophers for many different reasons. The empirical view of contemporary philosophy is that there is no distinction between the mind and the body (or soul/body or consciousness/body etc etc.) Hence most theories of consciousness pursue a material viewpoint.

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I believe that we exist as a soul, but I think it was somehow created by the neurons in our brains.

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This is an interesting view, considering most believers in a soul are usually dualists. I'd say here that your concept of a soul would be interchangable with the concept of consciousness, but I might be wrong.
One of the most confusing aspects of consciousness is that it is impossible to obtain an entirely objective viewpoint because it is our consciousness that allows us to understand any form of information at all.

Personally I think the best way to look at consciousness is from a naturalist viewpoint. What possible evolutionary advantage does consciousness and intelligence give us?

Basically, the more intelligent the organism, the better the organism's concept of 'self' is. An ant it is fair to say, has no concept of self. A chimp, on the other hand, is able to recognise itself and others in a mirror. Intelligence allows an organism to navigate its environment, which gives it better chance of finding food/avoiding danger/finding a mate. Early organisms had very primitive sensory systems - specialised cells that detect pressure and let the organism know that it has bumped into something. As these systems became more complex, special nerve cells evolved that allowed more complex transmission of information, becoming a central nervus system, and finally developing into a brain.

The brain allowed an orgnism to dedicate cells to processing information recieved, and coordinating responses to information. Things like movement (walking etc) are examples of this (your walking is controlled by your spine, more or less, which is why you can walk without actually 'thinking' about it.) As sensory organs become more complex (eyes etc) then the amount of information being gathered becomes more complex, and so the brain gradually evolves into higher levels. Basically, you have the spine, the brainstem (controlling your heart, lungs etc,) your cerebal cortex, and your prefrontal cortex. Proceeding from the spine to the prefrontal cortex is like climbing a chain of command, with the prefrontal cortex more or less being the 'seat of consciouisness.'

So, being able to interact with the environment is all well and good, but the brain needs to do some pretty tricky stuff in order to be successsful. It needs to be able to represent certain features of the environment - food, predators and mates - in order to interact with them. It is a substantial step to go from seeing a big brown blob to knowing that you're looking at a loaf of bread. Simply being able to rerpesent the environment around us is not by itself useful at all. This is perhaps the most important part. We have to be able to represent ourselves in order to interact with the environment at all. If we don't have a representation of our bodies and our needs then we cannot hope to do anything useful with the loaf of bread. As you look along a 'chain of intelligence' from simple bacteria to humans, you see increasing self-awareness. Our level of self-awareness allows us to not only eat the bread in front of us, but to plan ahead. We have a concept of 'this is me' and we know that we have been us since we were born and that we will still be us next year. This allows us to plan into the future for our future survival - we can plan to plant more wheat so that we may harvest it, grind it, cook it so that in a few month's time the person that is me will be able to eat a loaf of bread.

It's pretty crazy, really. Our whole ego and conscious 'sense of self,' which mainly resides in the profrontal cortex (roughly speaking) allows us to have beliefs, desires and emotions. It is still incredibly complex to understand exactly how our brains are able to do this, but when you realise that our brains consist of well over a trillion neurons, each capable of possessing 1,000 to 10,000 synapses (connections to other neurons) it is no wonder that we have trouble understanding the detail. It is one thing to use a computer to send an email, but another to understand how the computer's electrical current is manipulated in ways to represent binary code, which in turn represents pixels, representing font and colour and buttons. It's a bit of a rough comparison, but it's worth noting.

Basically, our consciousness is a form of governance over our bodies that allow us to survive by means of complex tasks. We've evolved to a point where we can use our consciousness not only to survive, but to create art and technology (creativity is arguably our greatest evolutionary advantage.) Sorry about the long post, but I hope it kind of made sense to a few people.