According to Oxford dictionary, the Mind is the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think and to feel. It is the faculty of consciousness and thought. While the body is the physical structure (internal and external) of a person. When it says the mind helps a person to feel, the feeling it is talking about are the emotional feelings. As we know, the body also helps one to feel the environment and the physical pain. So how is the mind and the body different? We have to recognize that there are philosophers or people who believe the Mind and the Body are two different entities, while there are those who believe the activities that one sometimes attributes to the mind are all activities of the
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While those who believe that activities that are attributed to the mind, are just activities of the body are called materialist.
Dualist believe that the Mind and the body are two separate entities. According to Rene Descartes, who was a dualist, “we can think of the self without a body, so it is not a body; we cannot think of the self without thinking, which is not a material act. So, the self must be a thinking, immaterial mind with a material body” (p. 79). This view is held by many traditionalist. We hear this kind of argument from many religious doctrine who believe in the afterlife. Dualist believe that there are certain decisions that are being carried out by the mind and not the physical body. I use the word “decision” because dualist do recognize that the mind is not physical and so it cannot physically carryout whatever decision it has made for itself, and so it needs the body to carry out those decisions. Dualist see thinking as an activity of the mind and not just of the brain. In order for one to make a good argument for a dualist view, a supernatural being must be introduced into the concept of dualism. Rene Descartes tried explaining the …show more content…
According to him, when one is taking a math test and one comes to a conclusion of different answers for just one math question that requires just one answer. If the one chooses the third answer as the right one but is not sure about it, is it the mind that makes one to go with that choice or that is just an activity of the brain. I find that example interesting because I have heard people say, my mind told me that is wrong or right. Could that decision just be a brain activity? Materialist believe it is just a brain
While those who believe that activities that are attributed to the mind, are just activities of the body are called materialist.
Dualist believe that the Mind and the body are two separate entities. According to Rene Descartes, who was a dualist, “we can think of the self without a body, so it is not a body; we cannot think of the self without thinking, which is not a material act. So, the self must be a thinking, immaterial mind with a material body” (p. 79). This view is held by many traditionalist. We hear this kind of argument from many religious doctrine who believe in the afterlife. Dualist believe that there are certain decisions that are being carried out by the mind and not the physical body. I use the word “decision” because dualist do recognize that the mind is not physical and so it cannot physically carryout whatever decision it has made for itself, and so it needs the body to carry out those decisions. Dualist see thinking as an activity of the mind and not just of the brain. In order for one to make a good argument for a dualist view, a supernatural being must be introduced into the concept of dualism. Rene Descartes tried explaining the …show more content…
According to him, when one is taking a math test and one comes to a conclusion of different answers for just one math question that requires just one answer. If the one chooses the third answer as the right one but is not sure about it, is it the mind that makes one to go with that choice or that is just an activity of the brain. I find that example interesting because I have heard people say, my mind told me that is wrong or right. Could that decision just be a brain activity? Materialist believe it is just a brain