The Mind vs. The Brain

            The mind-body problem is a very prominent philosophical issue that has puzzled many great minds. This problem arises because of contrasting characteristics of the mind and body. Some hold that the two are distinct while others believe they are one in the same. Cartesian dualism is the idea that there exists some metaphysical quality of the mind that distinguishes it from the physical brain. The mind is associated with humankind’s consciousness and our ability to be aware.

For Descartes, the mind and the body (or brain) are different substances, one material and one mental. The mind, the mental substance, accounts for thought and modes of thought such as emotions and desires. The body, the material substance, is responsible for the physical nature of the world. The body gives the mind signals while the mind commands the body. It is argued that because the mind is non-physical it cannot possibly affect the physical body. (http://www.blutner.de/philom/mindbody/Mind_body_dualism.pdf)

                I disagree with the theory of Cartesian Dualism and believe that the mind and body are both physical. In class, we argued at length about the presence of some non-physical aspect of the mind that makes humans unique. Many stated that if there was not a metaphysical mind then we could theoretically determine every action and reaction a certain person would make. If the consciousness was entirely reducible to the brain, then do we really have freedom? I believe that the consciousness is entirely reducible to the brain and that humans still possess free will. I do not believe the ‘what if’ argument that we will someday achieve the technology to map an entire brain to be valid. I believe the physical human brain to be so complex and intricate that we will never be able to know exactly what one person will do during their lifespan. For me, this complexity is the “metaphysical” mind. We then discussed the possibility that if the mind is purely physical, then could it be replicated with artificial intelligence. Again, I believe the mind, which evolved over millions and millions of years, to be too intricate to be replicated. Even though I do not believe in a non-physical mind, I do think there is some quality that we just cannot replicate. I find it very hard to explain myself and had trouble with this idea during the discussion today. The best example for me would be autistic people capable of memorizing everything they read or learning how to perform an instrument perfectly by sound. These amazing instances are evidence that our brain is capable of so much more than we know.

What do we understand about God and the human soul?

Descartes presented a few viewpoints related to humans and the human mind and soul.  His ideas were pretty interesting to me and I thought about how they relate to the way that I think. One of the things

he says is that everything that we know about God is demonstrated through reasoning.  This makes sense to me.  God is a very complex figure or spirit that no one will ever be able to understand. For example  I think that as humans we do understand God through the things that happen to us.  Sometimes when we go through experiences, we don't really understand what is happening or why. However, when that phase of our life is over and we take some time to reflect, we can understand God a little bit more.  He put experiences in our life for a reason and we can learn knew things.

Furthermore, he addresses how the human soul separate from the body.  I interpreted his ideas to mean that the soul is something that is intangible and lives on forever even after the body has perished. I  think that the soul is the spirit and the essence of a man.  It is something that cannot necessary be described.  I think that it is separate from the body, but I do think that it is connected to the mind and a man's thoughts. I think that this is true because when a man perishes, he leaves behind a legacy.  In my opinion that legacy is a part of why the soul exists after the man is dead.  The legacy is influenced by his actions while he is on earth, whether they are good or bad. Man may or may not know this when he is alive.

Lastly, Descartes addresses how nothing can be reduced to nothingness without God.  God is basically the master of everything.  He extinguishes life when it is time. He is like an artist or an inventor who brings things to existence.  No other force or spirit is capable of doing this.  Also, as humans, we cannot control how things happen.  We die in different ways and at different times.  God determines the end and beginning for everything on earth and we just have to accept this. We have to make sure that our life on earth is fulfilling while we still exist.

The Best of All Possible Worlds?

Have you ever had one of those surreal sort of moments where you suddenly have no idea who--or more significantly, what--you even are? One minute, you're innocently considering something as mundane as whether it's time to pluck your eyebrows because they're getting pretty unruly and maybe you-- then BAM. Who is this creature staring back at you in the mirror? Is that really you? And who is this voice wondering this in your head? Is this your soul talking? Your brain? All of a sudden, you're suffering a crisis of human consciousness: you feel absolutely disconnected from your body, from the world. You're trapped inside this weird fleshy shell and you're absolutely alone and is it any of this real anyway?

 I've had one of these experiences several times over the course of my life, but generally after a minute and a half or so of absolute bewilderment at my being, the feeling passes and I'm a normal person again. However, it seems that René Descartes had one of these episodes, and rather than letting it go, felt compelled to write Meditations on First Philosophy, in which he navigates the quandary of our existence.

For Descartes, the key to knowing anything is to first doubt absolutely everything. The way we know that we do, indeed, exist, is by having little mental meltdowns like the one described above--it is simply by wondering what we are that we find the truth: "I am a thing that thinks" (33).  The argument that particularly perplexes me, however, is found in his fourth meditation, when he considers the ability of a perfect God to create imperfection. While indeed I and Descartes both wonder why God would make humans so flawed if he is all-powerful, Descartes suggests that perhaps that despite the seeming imperfection of each of us as individuals,  we could be "very perfect when considered as constituting a part of this whole universe" (53). This calls to mind the ideas of Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide: that we live in the "best of all possible worlds." Though each of us is undeniably far from perfect, when taken as a whole, are we fulfilling a larger purpose of perfection? Is the world exactly as it should be?  . Are our short-comings carefully crafted to create an ultimately flawless long-run?  Though Voltaire seemed to mock these ideas, Descartes, I think, would find some merit in Pangloss's optimism. Then again, Voltaire also thought that one could only know what one perceived through the senses, so he and Descartes would have likely disagreed on a lot of things. But the significance is not, perhaps, in whether Descartes or Voltaire is  right about the nature of the universe--but simply that they considered their place in the universe at all. Perhaps to ask these questions was their finite purpose in the infinite world order.

Is that what we are? A cog in an infinite system? Is that why we think? Are we given these abstract constructions of reality by God himself? Like Descartes, I feel compelled to ask these questions but unlike him, I feel no such authority in answering them. All I know is that I am--and frankly, even that seems debatable at this point.

Descartes' Innate Ideas

In the “Meditations on First Philosophy”, philosopher Descartes uses six meditations to prove the existence of God. Descartes’ argument is based on the one thing he knows without a doubt, that humans have the capacity to think and have ideas and therefore exist. In class we spent a lot of time discussing and trying to understand the third meditation. The part of class that interested me the most was the difference between innate ideas and adventitious ideas. In fact one of the biggest questions that came up was if we only have ideas because we are taught them? I do believe that people have innate ideas. I believe that people are born with the idea of the difference between right and wrong. I think that another innate idea is the human will to survive. I think that everyone is born with ideas that help him or her make the right decisions to keep them alive. For example, a baby is not taught to eat or breathe, they do it because it is human nature.  However, I think that ideas of objects and what we do with these objects is learned. A baby has the innate idea of eating but they have an adventitious idea of how to eat and what to eat.

The concept that confuses me the most relating to innate and adventitious ideas is whether the idea of God is innate. I am inclined to believe that I would not know about God or religion if I had not been taught, or heard people talking about Him throughout my life. On the other hand, I think that it might be human nature and an innate idea to want to believe that there is a higher power that created the infinite universe even if there is no proof. The adventitious idea is learning that this higher power is God and that faith can be found in different religions. What continues to puzzle me is whether or not God is the innate idea, or if the innate idea is simply knowing that nothing appears out of nowhere, everything must come from something else. 

Doubt it

            Prior to the Scientific Revolution predominantly only members of the church and the upper class were educated.  This left the rest of society to learn by listening to their peers.  Thanks to Descartes and his usage of the natural light of reason, humans soon began to challenge this method, and were able to realize the path to truth was through the use of reason. No longer should something be true simply because one was told it was true.  In class we discussed Descartes and how he was able to redefine the standard of truths.  This begins in his first meditation, in which his methodology of universal doubt, which claimed he could not believe anything he had at one point learned or been told if there was any doubt.  He then threw away many truths perceived by his sense because, as seen in the stick in a cup of water example, one’s sense can deceive them.  As a result of this universal doubt I began to wonder what should I begin to doubt? 

            An example of an event that I had never before even considered doubting, which was brought up in class was the Holocaust.   For the sake of my point I ask what proof or truth do I alone behold that makes me believe without a doubt the event occurred?  Descartes doubted everything he was told by opinion and had not experienced for himself, so since I was not there I am not sure how to know without a doubt it occurred.  A textbook telling me or watching a TV show seemed to have been enough for me before, but I have never met a survivor and was not alive in Germany to witness the Holocaust.  I am not trying to say the Holocaust did not happen, but how can I know with certainty that it did happen?  At this point in time I am skeptical that there is any actual way to prove this truth, and this goes for almost anything else in the world.  Whether it is history or a current event, if I did not see for myself how can I with complete certainty believe it? 

            What could one argue against these bloggers who believe this so passionately?  http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t553062/

Descartes' Doubt

Will Gietema

September 12, 2012

Descartes’ Doubt

In class we discussed Descartes’ first meditation, in which he introduces his goal to withhold and stop any belief that has any doubt. Descartes goal is ultimately through three meditations to find truth. First, Descartes introduces the notion that nothing can be true if it can be doubted. This brings him to first exclude his senses and other people has deceived him and created doubt because they will prevent him from finding truth. Descartes gives the example that a stick that has been placed in water looks bent when in reality it is the water and the refractory properties or light traveling from air to water that are deceiving his eyes. In his second meditation Descartes states that the only thing he was contact with directly in the world are his ideas and because ideas are created without external senses, ideas are separate from external things. Although these ideas are separate from things, Descartes writes that they can still be doubted. This brings up the problem that if all ideas and all things perceived by senses can be doubted, then nothing can be true. Descartes solves this problem with his famous and perpetually misquoted line, “I am, I exist” showing that because he can think at least these is one truth.

After discovering one truth through his methods of meditation, Descartes begins his third meditation concerning the existence of God. Now up to this point I think that Descartes’ method of concluding that he exists it sounds and without injection of his own personal beliefs. Once he turns his attention to God and the nature of God’s existence however, I believe that Descartes strays from the foundations of his previous two meditations.  Descartes starts out by stating that no idea can come from nothing and that because he believes in an infinite God, there must be a God. This is because only an infinite perfect being could formulate concept of infinity. The only problem is that unless Descartes had a spiritual encounter with God, the likely place he was told or became aware of God was in church or through reading the Bible. Thus his belief of an infinite God must be doubted because he heard or read about God, which is as he previously stated deceiving. The second point that I doubt about what Descartes writes is the truths he comes to about the nature of God being good and benevolent. Descartes makes a large and unsubstantiated connection between God being perfect and perfection being truly good and benevolent. I think that despite his greatest efforts Descartes could not repress his internal beliefs that had been influenced by his external senses that projected a positive view of God. I think that the only truth that cannot be doubted is that doubt will always exist. 

Practicality and Physicality

In Descartes' writings entitled "Meditations on First Philosophy", he begins by reworking his thinking. In fact, he discards everything that he believes can be doubted. This includes a vast array of things; he must discard everything he has ever heard from anyone because humans are imperfect and their words cannot be trusted. He must discard everything he has ever seen, because his senses can deceive him: "I have learned by experience that these senses sometimes mislead me, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those things which have once deceived us" (Descartes, 18). Much of class time was spent debating whether or not it was our senses that truly deceived us, or rather the object being sensed.
For a while we entertained the idea of "our brains being poked by a mad scientist in Frasier-Jelke" who was manipulating what we see and feel, despite the fact that we were actually merely dreaming. After spending two-thirds of the class time trying to explain why we may be able to tell that we were not, in fact, in such a position, one student arrived at a simple conclusion.

"Why does it matter?" muttered one student, much to Professor Johnson's shock. Professor argued that even with the slightest doubt that we were truly alive, it could not be guaranteed to be true by Cartesian standards. He tried to explain himself, saying that even if he was actually dreaming and being manipulated, he was going to go on living his life (or dream) as he was, regardless of any brain poking taking place. I agree with this student. Although we can debate whether or not something is true, or whether something could be untrue, at some point we will no longer be able to continue questioning. Eventually, we will arrive at something that, regardless of whether or not it is true, has no bearing on life as we know it.

I believe that this line can be drawn at the point where the answer of its truth would have to practical, physical bearings in life. Some people in class explained that something's physicality did not matter. I disagree with this idea, because at some point, everything we know comes into play in the real world. The analogy in class about if I lived on an island and believed with all my heart that two plus two equaled five, then to me, two plus two would equal five. Even though I would be wrong, I would never know, nor care, because I would never have to act on my numerical reasoning in my world. In this sense, the physicality of numerical reasoning defines how numbers are taught, and applied. Without a physical basis, none of us would ever have learned how to add or subtract or manipulate numbers because they would be just that: numbers. We didn't learn how to add two plus two just to have some reasoning and knowledge in our brains; we learned it to be able to apply this knowledge when it matters. Therefore, I believe that sometimes the ideas matter because, and only because, they have a physical application.