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One of the oldest debates in philosophy is the mind-body argument. Ever since the Greeks, people have argued over whether the mind, matter, or both existed. There are essentially three different general viewpoints: materialism, idealism, and interactionism. In this section I shall discuss materialism. This viewpoint consists of the idea that only matter exists, there is no mind. This, of course, leads to the question of how we think. Well, materialists believe in matter, allowing the brain to be the source of "thought", but that is just synapses in the brain. What they don't believe in is a mind in terms of immaterial ways, such as a soul, or anything that can not manifest itself in matter. In other words, if it does not exist in a matter form, it does not exist. There are several different arguments for materialism that try to disprove idealism. One argument against materialism is that matter can not do things that are considered only attainable by the mind, such as reasoning. The materialist would say that there are things that minds can't do, such as catch a train. But the body can also reason, since the supposed mind is contained within the body, and that is a materialistic thing, leading to the conclusion that it is not a mind reasoning, but the body. Another argument for idealism is that there are certain things that are only mental, such as pain. Materialists say that it is ridiculous and redundant to say that pain is only mental and we think "thoughts", or sense "sensations". If your head hurts, for instance, your head does not have a mental thing of pain in your head. It is in a state of pain, bringing pain into the physical world. Another argument is that things that are living are that way because they possess a mind. What they truly possess, in the eyes of a materialist, is nothing special. What they do is what makes them "living". There is a rather dramatic and damaging idea that completely goes against the non-existence of the mind. It all revolves around logic. Think about any logical statement, like if a=b, and b=c, then a=c. How can that exist in the physical world? It does not, it is purely mental, along with everything else in the world of logic. There is no way to know logic without a mind since logic is only mental and does not truly exist in matter. |