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"A." <reflectie@hotmail.com> wrote in news:aim260$nlj$3@news.hccnet.nl:

> Mind-body problem.
> 
> In cognitive science or philosophy of mind, it often happens that
> there should be a mind-body problem. Well, I don't see a problem. That
> might be a good thing. But I would like to know what people are
> talking about. Can somebody please explain to me what the problem
> exactly is? 
> 
> Thanks, A.
> 
> 
> 

Well this isn't exactly a kind of question you can answer in a sentence or 
two.  There's quite a few mind/body problems.  However, when philosophers 
are discussing the issue more often than not they're trying to make sense of 
why the three pounds of meat in our skulls gives rise to mentality.  If you 
don't see a problem perhaps it is because you are of the view that the brain 
is all there is to the mind and because the brain is a physical system the 
mind can be understood in terms consistent with physical systems.  Or, 
perhaps you don't see a problem because you don't see anything peculiar 
about the mind that would make the relation between mind and brain 
contentious.  I'm not sure what your views are.  There are other ways that I 
suppose you might have difficulties with seeing the mind-body issue as a 
problem. For those who really consider their relationship trifling there are 
several different reasons for considering it a problem.  

Daniel Dennett and the Churchlands are well known for their views on the 
mind.  They are particularly well known for their skepticism concerning the 
ontology of the mind.  They both think that mental experiences are real and 
legitimate however they deny that subjective "conscious" experiences are 
anything other than certain neurophysical actions in the brain.  I suppose 
there are a couple of different responses to this claim that you can make.  
You can buy it and say, "Absolutely...my subjective experiences of the 
colour red is fully captured by a neurophysical description as it occurs in 
my brain." OR...You might say, "Yes I agree that the without the 
neurophysical component in my red-experience there is no red-experience, but 
despite that, the neurophysical description doesn't capture 'what it is 
like' for me to see red."  

A skeptic (like Dennett) might ask responder #2 to explain what they mean 
but that "something it is like" have a red-experience.  They might also ask 
them to explain why their experience of red should be different than 
another; why if they can't describe it that it should be considered as 
anything legitimate at all; why the neurophysical description somehow fails 
to capture something that the experiencer can't even express.  Dennett does 
all sorts of neat things like Sci-Fi thought experiments (inverted 
spectrum/brain-o-scope tests) that seem to make us beg the question as to 
the validity of the "subjectivity" of our mental experiences.  While I have 
a problem with his skepticism, and do not believe that he's provided a 
knock-down answer to the more difficult questions surrounding subjective 
mental experience, he is an excellent philosopher to read on the subject and 
(though this is not particularly relevent) his work has the best titles I've 
ever seen.  

The nice thing about being a materialist on the subject of the mind-body 
problem is that your dealing with known entities: objects and processes 
subject to physical laws (which, by and large, we have a pretty good grasp 
of).  If you think there is something to this notion of there being 
subjective mental experiences, that are not explicable in physical terms, 
you have a real problem.  The questions that may arise are: How are the 
brain and the mind related if one is physical and the other is not reducible 
to physical explanation?  If the brain is physical then what is the mind?  
If the mind is in some (bizarre) way non-physical, how does the brain 
causally interact with the mind?  Is there causal interaction between the 
brain and the mind?  

These and whole host of other questions arise when we decide to treat the 
subjective mental experience as real and legitimate.  Now, quite bit of the 
phenomena that falls under the umbrella term "subjective mental experience" 
seem to - and may actually - be explicable in neurphysiological terms.  
There has been a great deal of effort put into clarifying what is 
necessarily physical (objective) what is necessarily subjective.  The work 
of Professor David Chalmers, has of late, spawned a great deal of inquiry 
into the ontology of consciousness (See "The Conscious Mind (1995-96?)").  
For many seems to have hit upon the irreducible subjective aspect of 
mentality which to Chalmers lights is phenomenological consciousness.  

Loosely put, phenomenological consciousness can be thought of as the 
"something it is like" of given conscious experience (a la Thomas Nagel).  
There is much to be said on his work that needs to be expressed (his 
conceivability arguments, his proof via logical supervenience) that I have 
neither the time nor the ability to accurately express here.  Ultimately 
Chalmers arrives at what he calls a form of "Naturalistic Dualism" where you 
have the brain or some other functionally ismorphic equivalent and a 
consciousness which exists wherever a brain (or functional isomorph) exists.  
His model doesn't explain causal interaction between the consciousness and 
brain.  It doesn't explain why it should be the case that where there is a 
brain or functional equivalent, that a consciousness should exist.  And, 
(strangely enough) part of his proof of showing that the consciousness and 
the brain are distinct is by showing that where a functional isomorph exists 
(i.e. in a Zombie) it needn't be the case (as a matter of conceivability) 
that the functional isomorph be conscious.  

So there are alot of lingering questions that Chalmers is very upfront 
about; questions that he does not believe can be easily solved.  

What I've had to say is really a skimming over of the many issues implicit 
in the mind-body problem and I've only approached the issue from one 
particular aspect.  I'm just a student, so if there are inaccuracies or 
major explanatory gaps, please (anyone) fill them in.  If you are really 
interested in learning more about the mind-body problem I can give you names 
(however actual titles I'm less sure of at the moment).  If you want an 
excellent list sources on different question in the philosophy of mind, 
consult David Chalmers online database.  

The URL is: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online.html  

The focus of this site is primarily on consciousness studies but there is 
large degree of overlap.

I don't know if I've answered your questions.  Perhaps your interests were 
more technical than the answer I provided.  If so...oops.  If not...well 
great.  If somewhere in between, then maybe we can get some more voices 
going in the discourse.  I know there is much I need learn so I'd welcome 
any input.

Cheers,

-JW