Philosophy of Mind Essay Example for Free

Philosophy of nous Es labelSince centuries, our philosophers stand been trying to unravel mysteries of our memory, thought processes, different emotions, will power and imaginations culminating into what is known as different ingenious and conscious part of our personality. Our mind, as our great literary figures have posited, is a stream of our consciousness and is a part of our brains inherent processes. Our mind is a shoes where our reasoning power gets the shape and takes the practical form. As also said in Indian Vedic philosophy, He who knows the receptacle (Ayatana) verily becomes the receptacle of his people. Mind is verily the receptacle (of individually our knowledge). (Chhandogya Upanishad, V-i-5.)Different studies by our philosophers have been compounded into various theories each delving into the depth of various aspects of our mind processes. Its earliest studies have been found in the works of Zarathushtra, Mahatma Budha, Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara and many more ancient Greek and Indian Philosophers. Many of the pre scientific philosophers based their theories on affinity between the mind and the soul, supernatural elements of faith, having a feeling of amour with divinity or god, simply on the other hand modern theorists based their theories on their research and scientific studies of the brain.These theories rely heavily on the particular that the mind is a phenomenon of the brain and is a tantamount of consciousness. The study of the relationship between the body and mind is the most central aspect to the philosophy of mind, disdain of the fact that there are number of issues related to the nature of the mind which does not take into consideration its relationship to the physiologic body.The most crucial and knotty differences of thoughts are arising among different theorists regarding the exact and most appropriate scheme of mind. Though various theorists have developed their own different versions to make us attend our own functioning of mind yet as more and more theories are coming up, more and more it is getting difficult to come step up with the best theory of all.As all theories are able to capture the intensity of readers to make us understand the core of our mind and thoughts, yet it is rattling challenging to understand Which is the best? Here I am trying to unravel the mystery to understand which theory-Dualism, mind-brain identity or functionalism is a correct theory to understand all about mind.Dualism is a most important school of thought that has tested to solve the most paradoxical and most important relationship of mind and body problems. It has tried to make several attempts to sure that mind and body in some way or the other detach from each other. Roots of Dualism dates far back to Plato, Aristotle and the Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy but in a most precise way it was understood by Rene Descartes only in the 17th century. His philosophical disposition is based on the fact that the mind is independent in itself and constitutes cardinal different kinds of substances like res extensa meaning broaden things, strong-arm things and res cogitans means thinking things, (Descartes, Online Edition ).The thinking things are beyond the dimensions of time and space and are thus separate in itself whereas plaza dualists thinks that there are several independent properties known to us. It is quite pull ahead from his disposition that he is trying to explain the importance and concept of soul, giving apparitional discourse. But in this all, he has tried to explain that there is an interaction of mind in pineal gland, from where there is a control on corporeal actions and receive sensory perceptions.But this approach of Dualism is not without criticism as its properties are more of dubious in nature. Their theory is based on morality and their ardent faith but no element of scientific fact is found in this. If we visualize and understands that if t here is a soul in our corporeal body and the soul can have drastic effect then it is quite natural that it should be able to generate new energy to go the bodies into moment. It is argued that if the soul exists and it can affect the body then it must be able to create new energy to move the body, but this is sheer violation of the theory of the conservation principle. Owen Flanagan, in his The Science of the Mind says,If the mind according to Descartes is not a physical system therefore it also could not have any energy to prove herself but in-order to increase this physical energy, the need of the hour is to get it transferred from other physical system but it is not possible. (Owen Flanagan, pp. 21, Mind creators.com).To overcome the limitations of the Dualism, several philosophers and psychologists began to ignore the very concept and existence of mind itself and by doing so their expectations to touch the cord of mind began to flow towards the realistic part of our lives. T herefore in the beginning the new generation of philosophers came up with what is known as Type Identity Theory. They posters the view that though the structure of every persons brain is similar yet in the brain of every person there are certain differences therefore it is not possible to examine oneself in a position of same(p) neurological state.Therefore this theory soon took the shape of Token Taken theory implying that if there are two people having different neuropsychological states, then what is it that brings them into the same mental state? And to this they answered that it is due to the function of those two states only that had created them same. This leads to functionalism theory, which says that, Two different brain-state tokens would be tokens of the same type of mental state if the two brain states had the same causal relations to the input stimulus that the organism receives, to its various other mental states, and to its take behavior. (Functionalism, online edit ion).In simple words, he said that there were supposed to be two thoughts, which are same, and all of the inputs, internal and external, lead to the same output. With this statement, psychologists tried to bring all the conditions of the mind set in equilibrium. This leads to the functionalism theory.Though there are several problems to this approach too yet we can very say that if this theory of functionalism is adopted, it will take us into next major breakthrough, but all is not well with Functionalism too as it failed to explain in clear terms the fact that even if there are conditions of different physical states which gives different material phenomenon, then there is no possibility of different physical structures to regain equality. .While there is a great controversy to come at the concrete conclusion about which one is correct theory of mind,, but it is a matter of fact that functionalism is the most popular theory among scientists as well as philosophers of today. Accordi ng to this theory, all the aspects of mental state like beliefs, pains, hopes, fears, etcetera depends and are divided on the bases of their activity and are characterized by the jobs they do, or in other words according to the functions that they perform. Just like computers understands the main mentation behind our thoughts process in the same way our brains captures our thought processes from our mind and induces us to act accordingly.WORKS CITEDAnderson, David. Introduction to Functionalism Consortium on Mind/ superstar Science Instruction. Internet. (2006) Available http//www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/functionalism_intro/functionalism_intro.php?modGUI=44compGUI=1403itemGUI=2447, March 5, 2008Cofer, David. Dualism MindCreators.Com Internet. (2002) Availablehttp//www.mindcreators.com/Dualism.htm, March 5, 2008Cofer, David. Functionalism MindCreators.Com Internet. (2002) Available http//www.mindcreators.com/Functionalism.htm, March 5, 2008McAdoo, Oliver. Critically discuss the i dea that mental states are identical to physical states arrod.co.uk Internet. Available http//www.arrod.co.uk/essays/mind-brain-identity.php, March 5, 2008Chance, Tom. Mind-brain identity theory Internet. Availablehttp//tom.acrewoods.net/research/philosophy/mind/identitytheory, March 5, 2008Swamy Sivananda, Mind Its Mysteries Control, The Divine Life Trust Society, 1994, gentlemans gentleman Wide Web Edition, 1998, A Divine Life Society Publication, Internet Available, http//www.dlshq.org/download/mind.htmFlanagan, Owen (1991). The Science of the Mind, 2nd edition. MIT Press. pp. 21.