For years now I have been studying the mind-body problem both from the side of psychological science, as well as logical and reasonable argumentation. It has consumed my life for the past 3 years of the study, and it has come time to move past it. I’ve looked at more evidence and arguments on the topic than any other thing I’ve studied, become almost one-minded in my focus. And I’ve argued until I am frustrated, sad, and my head drips blood from banging it on things. In short, my study of the human mind and body has ironically made me ill, both my mind and body, and so I have written this to compile all the most important, consistent information I have come across and close this chapter. Even as I typed this I was losing motivation, so I think it is going to do what it is supposed to, for me at least. It’s mostly a very flushed out version of things I have said previously, so I apologize for that, but I was interested to see my own consistency considering my past flip-flopping. Either way I look forward to our final discussion on the topic for now!
The start, I want to acknowledge that forms of monism certainly have at least some evidence or arguments. Any kind of immaterial monism tends to boil down to things being some sort of illusion, or all matter simply being projected by consciousness, things of that nature. These come to things like solipsism or radical skepticism, which are true issues to overcome, but not very pragmatic to address, and barely possible to address. Sure we could be a brain in a vat or something like that, but it doesn’t really get us anywhere. Material monism does have some empirical evidence, specifically how doing something to the brain can cause changes in the mind, and the obvious correlation between brain states and mental states. I will end up touching on this more a lot more below. But now, to my reasoning and evidence for mind-body dualism.
The best place to start is at the foundation, axiomatic facts. An axiom is something that is necessarily true, meaning that it would be impossible for the axiom to be false. It cannot be argued because there are no premises more basic, but it cannot be argued against because even doing so would still rely on the axiom (Importance of Philosophy, n.d.). The Law of Identity is one such axiom, that A is A. It has to be true, for something has to be itself, and if not the universe as we know it could not exist. You cannot argue that A is Non-A because this still relies on the very fact that A is itself to make sense. For the mind-body problem, that the self exists is also such an axiom, as is easily demonstrated. For example, there are no premises more simply than “the self exists”, because all those premises are known to and created by that self in the first place. You cannot argue that “I do not exist”, because you are the one doing the denying, the reasoning, and the claiming. If the claim were to be true, then you do not exist to do the denying, the argument is not made, and we enter a paradox. It also is not possible to be false, as the self is what understands and distinguishes between truth and falsehood. Best of all, if this is not axiomatic, it would be very easy to show. All one would need to do is attempt to claim the self does not exist without relying on the self in the first place. But much like trying to argue A as Non-A, this seems like it simply cannot be done. If the self is axiomatic, it raises a major problem for material monism, because matter is only known through the mind/self. Materialism has to essentially eliminate an axiom in order to be valid, a rather tall order for any position.
Next is the issue of property dualism. In philosophy, a property is that which can be attributed to something (Standord, n.d.). Redness to an apple, for example, means that redness is a properties of that apple and of some apples. For two things to be identical, they need to have the same properties, in keeping with the law of identity discussed above. A does not have the properties of letter B, to illustrate. This is the same way that the mind and brain have different properties. For one, physiological activity in the brain is different than the experienced events in a mind. Even if you perfectly knew the workings of someone or somethings brain, this is entirely different from having insight into their actual mind and experience (Nagel, 1974). Even if we are able to project an image of someone’s mental contents onto a screen, this does not come close to the subjective experience of the individual. This lack of direct access and study is another difference in the properties between brain and mind. You can poke at a brain, directly measure the changes, but you cannot do this with the contents of someone’s mind. Another difference in properties is that the physical brain acts in deterministic, predictable ways. This is not the case with the mind, as easily showed by something like lucid dreaming. We can understand and measure how the brain is working during lucid dreaming, but the experience the dreamer is engaged in does not need to match reality in the slightest (LaBerge, 1990). Heck, even sitting around day dreaming the mind is free to wander despite the brain acting in very normal, material ways. In short, there is rather clearly a kind of property dualism between the mind and brain. Even if we assume that mind or brain arises from the other in some way, it is clear that there is now a dualism between the two.
Moving on, there are problems with causality. Any form of monism is going to show one-way causality. If the brain exists and completely creates the mind, then the brain will always cause and effect in the mind, not the other way around. Likewise, if only the immaterial or consciousness exist, then that would always precede physical change (which is obviously not the case). Neither of these are what we see in reality. Yes, obviously things like ingesting drugs or messing with the brain can cause cognitive changes, which gives material monism a slight edge over immaterial monism, but less commonly recognized is that this works both ways. For example, the belief in a placebo working, even when patients are aware it is a placebo, can lead to significant change in pain levels (Kaptcjuk, Friedlander, Kelley, Sanchez, Kokkotou, Singer, Kowalczykowski, Miller, Kirsch, and Lembo, 2010). Placebos, by definition, do not cause any physiological changes in the body. If we take away the belief in the placebo working, it will become ineffective. This study shows that deception is not even required, just the positive belief. This then leads to a change in pain, which corresponds to the physiological properties of pain relief. The entire field of cognitive therapy is based on hundreds of empirically validated studies, yet put absolutely no focus on the physiology of the brain (Beck, 2010). Things like prejudice are close to being explained in almost entirely metal terms, with no reliance on physiology (Duckitt, 2001). Even in children who son’t have advanced reasoning abilities or higher cognitive thought, it has been shown that just negative self-talk can have an overwhelming effect on their mental states (Treadwell & Kendall, 1996).Therapists work with things like visualization, self-talk, meditation, coping mechanisms, recognization of triggers, and so on, no neurotransmitter levels, models of the brain, or things like that. It is addressed entirely from the mental side of things, because psychology inherently recognizes the property dualism behind the mind and body.
So to sum up, monism in general needs to address why the mind and brain have different properties if they are identical, how to reduce different things into one things. It needs to explain why both the material and mental seem to have an impact on each other, rather than just one way or the other, if the two are identical and reducible. Immaterial monism needs to explain why there is such consistent evidence for a world free of the mind and capable of impacting it, and materialism needs to show that self-existence is not axiomatic, which is either super simple to do if correct and impossible to do if incorrect. As for dualism, none of the above it a problem for it. It does not face any of this logical predicaments, and is not impacted by empirical evidence which seems to clearly suggest both the internal and external world exist. What it does fall victim to is what every position falls victim to: that of mechanism. No position, monism or dualistic, seems to have a good answer to what causes either the brain or mind to rise from the other, or both to interact. Over all it is one of the great unanswered questions, but if we are going to try and deduce an answer, it needs to be in line with the logic and evidence, in this case dualism.
Anyways, those are some of the biggest points, thought axioms, empirical evidence, and philosophy aren’t something I really scoff at. Personally, I believe in a form of Neo-Platonism, that for each thing that exists a perfect and abstract form of it exists. In line with this, if there is a mind/independent consciousness then there is a perfect form of such a mind/consciousness. To me, this would have many if not all the charateristics I would need to classify a god – being eternal, being conscious, perfect self-awareness, perfect understanding of how it relates to other things, immaterial, and so on. A mix between striving to be moral and the flaws that are inherent with questioning, doubt, confusion, etc. But this gets far off of the mind-body problem, and is something to probably be discussed elsewhere at a different time. Either way, thanks for reading. It’s been a long journey, and the more I’ve studied the logic and evidence the more I have had to amend my almost life-long beliefs. It’s been exhausting and frustrating, and I look forward to the pending break if I can stick to it. Xeper.
Axiom. (n.d.). Retrieved October 04, 2013, from http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Axiom.html
Beck, J. (2010). Cognitive Therapy. Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved September 05, 2016, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0198/full
Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 41-113. Retrieved September 07, 2016, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260101800046
Kaptchuck, T., Friedlander, E., Kelley, J., Sanchez, N., Kokkotou, E., Singer, J., . . . Lembo, A. (2010, December 22). Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Plos One. Retrieved April 15, 2012, from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015591
LaBerge, S. (1990). Lucid dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep. American Psychological Association, 109-126. Retrieved May 07, 2016, from http://www.lucidipedia.com/downloads/lucidityinstitute_researchpapers.pdf#page=163
Nagel, T. (1974, October). What Is It Like To Be A Bat. The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435-450. Retrieved August 08, 2016, from http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
Properties. (2016, February 17). Retrieved May 13, 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties/
Treadwell, K., & Kendall, P. (1996, October). Self-talk in youth with anxiety disorders: States of mind, content specificity, and treatment outcome. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(5), 941-950. Retrieved September 07, 2016, from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/64/5/941/
The start, I want to acknowledge that forms of monism certainly have at least some evidence or arguments. Any kind of immaterial monism tends to boil down to things being some sort of illusion, or all matter simply being projected by consciousness, things of that nature. These come to things like solipsism or radical skepticism, which are true issues to overcome, but not very pragmatic to address, and barely possible to address. Sure we could be a brain in a vat or something like that, but it doesn’t really get us anywhere. Material monism does have some empirical evidence, specifically how doing something to the brain can cause changes in the mind, and the obvious correlation between brain states and mental states. I will end up touching on this more a lot more below. But now, to my reasoning and evidence for mind-body dualism.
The best place to start is at the foundation, axiomatic facts. An axiom is something that is necessarily true, meaning that it would be impossible for the axiom to be false. It cannot be argued because there are no premises more basic, but it cannot be argued against because even doing so would still rely on the axiom (Importance of Philosophy, n.d.). The Law of Identity is one such axiom, that A is A. It has to be true, for something has to be itself, and if not the universe as we know it could not exist. You cannot argue that A is Non-A because this still relies on the very fact that A is itself to make sense. For the mind-body problem, that the self exists is also such an axiom, as is easily demonstrated. For example, there are no premises more simply than “the self exists”, because all those premises are known to and created by that self in the first place. You cannot argue that “I do not exist”, because you are the one doing the denying, the reasoning, and the claiming. If the claim were to be true, then you do not exist to do the denying, the argument is not made, and we enter a paradox. It also is not possible to be false, as the self is what understands and distinguishes between truth and falsehood. Best of all, if this is not axiomatic, it would be very easy to show. All one would need to do is attempt to claim the self does not exist without relying on the self in the first place. But much like trying to argue A as Non-A, this seems like it simply cannot be done. If the self is axiomatic, it raises a major problem for material monism, because matter is only known through the mind/self. Materialism has to essentially eliminate an axiom in order to be valid, a rather tall order for any position.
Next is the issue of property dualism. In philosophy, a property is that which can be attributed to something (Standord, n.d.). Redness to an apple, for example, means that redness is a properties of that apple and of some apples. For two things to be identical, they need to have the same properties, in keeping with the law of identity discussed above. A does not have the properties of letter B, to illustrate. This is the same way that the mind and brain have different properties. For one, physiological activity in the brain is different than the experienced events in a mind. Even if you perfectly knew the workings of someone or somethings brain, this is entirely different from having insight into their actual mind and experience (Nagel, 1974). Even if we are able to project an image of someone’s mental contents onto a screen, this does not come close to the subjective experience of the individual. This lack of direct access and study is another difference in the properties between brain and mind. You can poke at a brain, directly measure the changes, but you cannot do this with the contents of someone’s mind. Another difference in properties is that the physical brain acts in deterministic, predictable ways. This is not the case with the mind, as easily showed by something like lucid dreaming. We can understand and measure how the brain is working during lucid dreaming, but the experience the dreamer is engaged in does not need to match reality in the slightest (LaBerge, 1990). Heck, even sitting around day dreaming the mind is free to wander despite the brain acting in very normal, material ways. In short, there is rather clearly a kind of property dualism between the mind and brain. Even if we assume that mind or brain arises from the other in some way, it is clear that there is now a dualism between the two.
Moving on, there are problems with causality. Any form of monism is going to show one-way causality. If the brain exists and completely creates the mind, then the brain will always cause and effect in the mind, not the other way around. Likewise, if only the immaterial or consciousness exist, then that would always precede physical change (which is obviously not the case). Neither of these are what we see in reality. Yes, obviously things like ingesting drugs or messing with the brain can cause cognitive changes, which gives material monism a slight edge over immaterial monism, but less commonly recognized is that this works both ways. For example, the belief in a placebo working, even when patients are aware it is a placebo, can lead to significant change in pain levels (Kaptcjuk, Friedlander, Kelley, Sanchez, Kokkotou, Singer, Kowalczykowski, Miller, Kirsch, and Lembo, 2010). Placebos, by definition, do not cause any physiological changes in the body. If we take away the belief in the placebo working, it will become ineffective. This study shows that deception is not even required, just the positive belief. This then leads to a change in pain, which corresponds to the physiological properties of pain relief. The entire field of cognitive therapy is based on hundreds of empirically validated studies, yet put absolutely no focus on the physiology of the brain (Beck, 2010). Things like prejudice are close to being explained in almost entirely metal terms, with no reliance on physiology (Duckitt, 2001). Even in children who son’t have advanced reasoning abilities or higher cognitive thought, it has been shown that just negative self-talk can have an overwhelming effect on their mental states (Treadwell & Kendall, 1996).Therapists work with things like visualization, self-talk, meditation, coping mechanisms, recognization of triggers, and so on, no neurotransmitter levels, models of the brain, or things like that. It is addressed entirely from the mental side of things, because psychology inherently recognizes the property dualism behind the mind and body.
So to sum up, monism in general needs to address why the mind and brain have different properties if they are identical, how to reduce different things into one things. It needs to explain why both the material and mental seem to have an impact on each other, rather than just one way or the other, if the two are identical and reducible. Immaterial monism needs to explain why there is such consistent evidence for a world free of the mind and capable of impacting it, and materialism needs to show that self-existence is not axiomatic, which is either super simple to do if correct and impossible to do if incorrect. As for dualism, none of the above it a problem for it. It does not face any of this logical predicaments, and is not impacted by empirical evidence which seems to clearly suggest both the internal and external world exist. What it does fall victim to is what every position falls victim to: that of mechanism. No position, monism or dualistic, seems to have a good answer to what causes either the brain or mind to rise from the other, or both to interact. Over all it is one of the great unanswered questions, but if we are going to try and deduce an answer, it needs to be in line with the logic and evidence, in this case dualism.
Anyways, those are some of the biggest points, thought axioms, empirical evidence, and philosophy aren’t something I really scoff at. Personally, I believe in a form of Neo-Platonism, that for each thing that exists a perfect and abstract form of it exists. In line with this, if there is a mind/independent consciousness then there is a perfect form of such a mind/consciousness. To me, this would have many if not all the charateristics I would need to classify a god – being eternal, being conscious, perfect self-awareness, perfect understanding of how it relates to other things, immaterial, and so on. A mix between striving to be moral and the flaws that are inherent with questioning, doubt, confusion, etc. But this gets far off of the mind-body problem, and is something to probably be discussed elsewhere at a different time. Either way, thanks for reading. It’s been a long journey, and the more I’ve studied the logic and evidence the more I have had to amend my almost life-long beliefs. It’s been exhausting and frustrating, and I look forward to the pending break if I can stick to it. Xeper.
Axiom. (n.d.). Retrieved October 04, 2013, from http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Axiom.html
Beck, J. (2010). Cognitive Therapy. Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved September 05, 2016, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0198/full
Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 41-113. Retrieved September 07, 2016, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260101800046
Kaptchuck, T., Friedlander, E., Kelley, J., Sanchez, N., Kokkotou, E., Singer, J., . . . Lembo, A. (2010, December 22). Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Plos One. Retrieved April 15, 2012, from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015591
LaBerge, S. (1990). Lucid dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep. American Psychological Association, 109-126. Retrieved May 07, 2016, from http://www.lucidipedia.com/downloads/lucidityinstitute_researchpapers.pdf#page=163
Nagel, T. (1974, October). What Is It Like To Be A Bat. The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435-450. Retrieved August 08, 2016, from http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
Properties. (2016, February 17). Retrieved May 13, 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties/
Treadwell, K., & Kendall, P. (1996, October). Self-talk in youth with anxiety disorders: States of mind, content specificity, and treatment outcome. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(5), 941-950. Retrieved September 07, 2016, from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/64/5/941/
