Issue: Searle and the Mind-Body Problem

Thesis

In this paper, I will argue that Searle's model is the wrong way to think about the connection between mind and brain.

Introduction

Before I argue Searle's model, I have to state up front how much in his philosophy I admire and respect. He is one of the few philosophers that are capable of writing English, one of the few that can think and speak clearly. He never invents a term for which there is no need or even proof that it exists (Fodor, p217). I find his view regarding Hume's theory on cause and effect, naive realism and the self to be right on target. However, in spite of my amazing respect for him, I find his view of the mind essentially mistaken.

The chief flaw with John Searle's account of the mind is that it would be logically impossible if his model were true for humans to truly express creativity, such as poetry, music, even compose philosophy. Searle has tried very hard to distance himself from and critique materialism but I see nothing in his philosophy other than a purely mechanistic mind, entirely subject to the physical laws of nature. He is famous for attacking the computational theory of mind, but ironically his own views on the mind are only slightly different, a view he calls biological naturalism. Unfortunately he only gives us one very concrete example of how the mind works, what happens when one feels thirsty, when clearly such voluntary actions such as writing poetry or coming up with a new idea, cannot be equated with the process of satisfying thirst.

Discussion

The mind-body problem is the problem of how the mind relates to the brain. Searle believes that the mind relates to brain-activity as the liquidity of water relates to the activity of H2O molecules. He says: “Just as the liquidity of the water is caused by the behavior of elements at the micro-level, and yet at the same time it is a feature realized in the system of micro-elements, so in exactly that sense of 'caused by' and 'realized in' mental phenomena are caused by and realized in the very system that consists of neurons” (Searle, p. 22).

It is this duality apperceived or imagined human beings to regard in the first instance the mind-body problem. However, currently there are three different formulations of this problem, which affect one aspect or another of the same as the context of its own making. Such formulations are the religious, philosophical and scientific appearing as themselves (though not without philosophical aspects).

The religious formulation of the mind-body duality is understood that between body and soul, that is, between what we have in common with the material realities of this world and our soul or spirit as immaterial and distinct reality of this world. It should call this formulation of the problem "the problem of St. Augustine," since this holy few people experienced as painful confrontation between the passions of his body and the desire for immortality ...