Body and mind

 

 

Body and mind

 

Introduction

There is an imaginary debate of philosopher Rene Descartes and John Searle presented in this paper which will help and support to understand their concepts regarding body and mind. They have discussed many important elements which are in the context of body and mind. There are many important question included in this debate regarding the views of Rene Descartes and John Searle. Their views are based on the following elements which are discussed further. 

There are diversified views of Rene Descartes and John Searle on an argument that the mind is independent of the body

The mind is independent from the body

John Searle: “The  mind has its own independency which can be seen at the time of consciousness.  The mind seems to be more than the electrical impulses generated by the brain. It is due to the fact because all the impulses which are generated by the brain are executed with the help of body. The mind and body both are dependent on each other, therefore, the all the actions performed by the body are generated through the impulses generated by the brain” (Searle, 1984). 

Descartes: “I partially agree to your thinking. The mind and the body are both interlinked.  They both depend on each other. However, I disagree from your view that the mind depends upon the electric impulses generated by the brain. Rather the state of mind is partially dependent and partially independent and without the help and support of the body a mind cannot perform its functions.”

Descartes view about existence of physical matter and our bodies

Descartes: “The first and best-known method of doubt in my opinion involves reductionism, in the sense that one should use a negative or reverse logical path to get to his first most basic principle. In the Meditations on First Philosophy, I first distinguished between the categories of knowledge, arguing that there are some types of knowledge which are subject to illusion or imprecision and some which are not. The basic knowledge of things in which we have apparent certainty includes corporeal nature in general, and its extension, the figure of extended things, their quantity or magnitude and number, as also the place in which they are, the time which measures their duration. However, I do not propose that knowledge of such things is proven to the extent that is required by "first philosophy," or pure epistemology. I acknowledge, for example, that an all-powerful controlling deity might have created all of my sensory perceptions, and that the world and all its things might be a vast illusion. An evil all-powerful deity might even be able to make me falsely believe in his own reality, and to believe in a God that was good. Virtually everything can be doubted on this basis, except that an illusion, or some form of mental activity, is taking place. It is so rigorous epistemology requires that we must doubt the reality of our own perceptions and ideas.

 

Searle believes the mind is a rule-based information processing system 

John Searle: “I believe ...