Essay on the existence of a mind
Content
Cassidy Troxell 6/8/11 Intro to Philosophy
How does one go about describing the mind? It is a hard thing to do considering most people do not believe that the mind is a real thing. I would argue how would you come to the conclusion that the mind isn’t real without thinking that thought within your mind? The brain controls the body and the mind but the mind is the one in control when a person is thinking of how to judge and is thinking of the future. The mind is its own substance inside the brain. It is true that the mind would not exist outside of the brain which is possibly why the argument against the mind began. The mind should be considered real on the basis that without it we would simply exist and not be able to change sense data into actual memories or feelings or thoughts. I can best compare the mind to a turtle and the brain to the shell of a turtle. The shell is there to protect the turtle, it deters other animals from attacking it like the brain will fight off diseases and various other things, but the turtle has it’s own identity inside the shell. The only problem is that the turtle is attached to the shell, take away the shell and the turtle will die, also the mind will die if the brain is detached. The mind depends on the brain and the sense data that the brain collects in order for it to form perceptions of various occurrences. I find that both Montague and Dennett have valid interpretations of the mind. Though I personally don’t agree one hundred percent with either view, I feel as though examples, from each one, work together to form what I believe the mind to be. W. P.
Montague believes that the mind is depended on the brain and to an extent I believe the same. The mind does depend on the brain, a person could have a brain and a mind but a person could also have a brain without a mind. Meaning that just because a person has a brain does not mean they have a mind. Montague also supplies in his argument for the self as an adjective. When seeing an action, as an instinct, we think back to when we ourselves have done that action and respond accordingly based on the previous experience For instance, if we saw someone laughing, we associate it to our experience where someone told a joke and we laughed. This was a lesson learned through actions, it wasn’t there automatically. What I can find counter to Montague’s belief is that just because the mind needs the brain to be, it does not rely on the brain to think. This means that the mind is an independent being within the brain or as some may say it is a type of soul. Though I believe that the soul is a completely different property than the mind, I can understand the common relationship between the two. I can also say that I do not completely agree with Montague, I believe that all things are not necessarily learned from our experience. I believe that some knowledge of various things are within our mind since birth; for example a child does not learn how to love their parents, the baby will bond with its parents right away and as the baby grows it develops more love and understanding. Though a child will learn how to talk and act and understand from exploring the outside world which could be linked to the brain and its quest for answers, like Dennett mentions, but the child’s mind knows automatically what it is comfortable with and how to emotionally react to a situation while the brain calculates the outcomes while also figuring out when or when not to do something.
Montague basically states, in his argument for the Self as a Substantive, that because the mind in every being is different, each person’s goals or thinking pattern will be different. I believe that this is true, that each person reacts differently because they each have their own mind that will create different conclusions to the same problem. Consider this, each living being has a brain, otherwise they would not be able to control their lungs to get air which would stop the heart. If a person was to believe that the mind does not exist only the brain then the thought process would be the same, so for each given situation, every person would act the same which is not the case. People choose many different solutions to the same problem because of their mind, they have a different mental view on how to deal with things. A broken pipe needs to be fixed, a person can choose to fix it or replace it but which method depends on the person. You can use duct tape, gum, someone’s finger, a sponge, or various other ways to fix the pipe or one could buy a new pipe, have someone else come repair it, use a different pipe, or just turn off the water that runs through that pipe. Dennett believes that the mind can never be found, like Montague believed, or defined though he does go to say that the mind is like the center of gravity. It does not take on a physical shape nor can it be seen but still it exists and it can be tested. I, on the other hand, believe that the mind can’t be tested. The mind is one of those things where believing is seeing, and because we have a mind then we can imagine what the mind could do, could be, and what we could accomplish with it. Dennett also seems to relate the mind to a self which, depending on a person’s definition of self, could mean soul. The soul is believed to live on after the physical death and continue to exist in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Reborn, Etc. The self is argued
to be a fiction which would mean that the mind and the brain along with everything we encounter is made up, but who makes it up? In my opinion, it would be like living in a dream, your mind or someone else’s mind creates everything you encounter even the thought of the mind in the brain, but you have no idea that it is all made up. Then who creates the dream? There is nowhere that the cycle could start from, which leads me to believe that it is not reliable. What I do concur with Dennett about is the fact that we developed a mind through asking questions. We evolved from our ancestors, who did not have conscious thought, by asking questions where no one could answer so we developed our own thoughts and thinking patterns that entitled us to have different minds. If you follow Dennett’s thought process, the answering of one’s own question linked the two sides of the brain together. To a reader that connection of the two sides created the mind instead of a brain with two sides, which I do not find to be that hard of a conclusion to come to. Though I believe that the mind cannot be tested to see if it exist, I do believe that tests can be performed in order to understand if what we believe to be correct in our mind is from a preconceived knowledge, that we have always had, have learned from experience, or have just been told about for a time so that now we believe them to be true. Descartes went through a thinking process where he doubted everything that he thought he knew and from this it can be proven that some things are knowledgeable to us and other things we just have to try for ourselves. For instance emotions, caused by the mind in relation to stimulants to the brain, have been with me since birth. I have
always felt them and known they were there, no one told me what they felt like only what the names were. Things like colors and objects, however, have been taught to us throughout the years but only through experimenting can we find out what they do, how there made, or if they can change, which Locke examines. Locke’s view is that of all knowledge comes from experience, that we have no idea of anything until we have experienced it. Then how can you explain a dream of an object or of a taste if you have never had it? Or people who have supposed memories from a past life? Many believe them to be false in their claims, but it is a reality for that person. Experience does account for most of what one perceives to be true but there are those few things that I believe humans are born into knowing, even animals with their underdeveloped brain have that preconceived notion of survival. What I perceive to be true is that the mind exists within the brain and cannot continue to exist if the brain is dead or no longer functions. The mind is a part of the soul, or created based on the self, which does not need the brain to exist because the soul is not entrapped within the body. It is the essence of one’s being which lives beyond the body. The mind is created from the linkage between both sides of the brain which connects the creative side with the logical side. This enables independent thinking which sets every person apart from each other. The mind is within the brain since birth and it already has the knowledge that enables the child to survive, like the brain does. The only difference is that the brain is focusing on the bodily functions whereas the mind is concerned with everything else. The majority of the mind, however, is a collection of learned experience which happens over a lifetime and from the creative
wonders that an individual mind can create. The mind is very much real but when it comes to testing the mind it is more of a leap of faith which will remain in your brain whether a person wants to acknowledge its existence or not.
How does one go about describing the mind? It is a hard thing to do considering most people do not believe that the mind is a real thing. I would argue how would you come to the conclusion that the mind isn’t real without thinking that thought within your mind? The brain controls the body and the mind but the mind is the one in control when a person is thinking of how to judge and is thinking of the future. The mind is its own substance inside the brain. It is true that the mind would not exist outside of the brain which is possibly why the argument against the mind began. The mind should be considered real on the basis that without it we would simply exist and not be able to change sense data into actual memories or feelings or thoughts. I can best compare the mind to a turtle and the brain to the shell of a turtle. The shell is there to protect the turtle, it deters other animals from attacking it like the brain will fight off diseases and various other things, but the turtle has it’s own identity inside the shell. The only problem is that the turtle is attached to the shell, take away the shell and the turtle will die, also the mind will die if the brain is detached. The mind depends on the brain and the sense data that the brain collects in order for it to form perceptions of various occurrences. I find that both Montague and Dennett have valid interpretations of the mind. Though I personally don’t agree one hundred percent with either view, I feel as though examples, from each one, work together to form what I believe the mind to be. W. P.
Montague believes that the mind is depended on the brain and to an extent I believe the same. The mind does depend on the brain, a person could have a brain and a mind but a person could also have a brain without a mind. Meaning that just because a person has a brain does not mean they have a mind. Montague also supplies in his argument for the self as an adjective. When seeing an action, as an instinct, we think back to when we ourselves have done that action and respond accordingly based on the previous experience For instance, if we saw someone laughing, we associate it to our experience where someone told a joke and we laughed. This was a lesson learned through actions, it wasn’t there automatically. What I can find counter to Montague’s belief is that just because the mind needs the brain to be, it does not rely on the brain to think. This means that the mind is an independent being within the brain or as some may say it is a type of soul. Though I believe that the soul is a completely different property than the mind, I can understand the common relationship between the two. I can also say that I do not completely agree with Montague, I believe that all things are not necessarily learned from our experience. I believe that some knowledge of various things are within our mind since birth; for example a child does not learn how to love their parents, the baby will bond with its parents right away and as the baby grows it develops more love and understanding. Though a child will learn how to talk and act and understand from exploring the outside world which could be linked to the brain and its quest for answers, like Dennett mentions, but the child’s mind knows automatically what it is comfortable with and how to emotionally react to a situation while the brain calculates the outcomes while also figuring out when or when not to do something.
Montague basically states, in his argument for the Self as a Substantive, that because the mind in every being is different, each person’s goals or thinking pattern will be different. I believe that this is true, that each person reacts differently because they each have their own mind that will create different conclusions to the same problem. Consider this, each living being has a brain, otherwise they would not be able to control their lungs to get air which would stop the heart. If a person was to believe that the mind does not exist only the brain then the thought process would be the same, so for each given situation, every person would act the same which is not the case. People choose many different solutions to the same problem because of their mind, they have a different mental view on how to deal with things. A broken pipe needs to be fixed, a person can choose to fix it or replace it but which method depends on the person. You can use duct tape, gum, someone’s finger, a sponge, or various other ways to fix the pipe or one could buy a new pipe, have someone else come repair it, use a different pipe, or just turn off the water that runs through that pipe. Dennett believes that the mind can never be found, like Montague believed, or defined though he does go to say that the mind is like the center of gravity. It does not take on a physical shape nor can it be seen but still it exists and it can be tested. I, on the other hand, believe that the mind can’t be tested. The mind is one of those things where believing is seeing, and because we have a mind then we can imagine what the mind could do, could be, and what we could accomplish with it. Dennett also seems to relate the mind to a self which, depending on a person’s definition of self, could mean soul. The soul is believed to live on after the physical death and continue to exist in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Reborn, Etc. The self is argued
to be a fiction which would mean that the mind and the brain along with everything we encounter is made up, but who makes it up? In my opinion, it would be like living in a dream, your mind or someone else’s mind creates everything you encounter even the thought of the mind in the brain, but you have no idea that it is all made up. Then who creates the dream? There is nowhere that the cycle could start from, which leads me to believe that it is not reliable. What I do concur with Dennett about is the fact that we developed a mind through asking questions. We evolved from our ancestors, who did not have conscious thought, by asking questions where no one could answer so we developed our own thoughts and thinking patterns that entitled us to have different minds. If you follow Dennett’s thought process, the answering of one’s own question linked the two sides of the brain together. To a reader that connection of the two sides created the mind instead of a brain with two sides, which I do not find to be that hard of a conclusion to come to. Though I believe that the mind cannot be tested to see if it exist, I do believe that tests can be performed in order to understand if what we believe to be correct in our mind is from a preconceived knowledge, that we have always had, have learned from experience, or have just been told about for a time so that now we believe them to be true. Descartes went through a thinking process where he doubted everything that he thought he knew and from this it can be proven that some things are knowledgeable to us and other things we just have to try for ourselves. For instance emotions, caused by the mind in relation to stimulants to the brain, have been with me since birth. I have
always felt them and known they were there, no one told me what they felt like only what the names were. Things like colors and objects, however, have been taught to us throughout the years but only through experimenting can we find out what they do, how there made, or if they can change, which Locke examines. Locke’s view is that of all knowledge comes from experience, that we have no idea of anything until we have experienced it. Then how can you explain a dream of an object or of a taste if you have never had it? Or people who have supposed memories from a past life? Many believe them to be false in their claims, but it is a reality for that person. Experience does account for most of what one perceives to be true but there are those few things that I believe humans are born into knowing, even animals with their underdeveloped brain have that preconceived notion of survival. What I perceive to be true is that the mind exists within the brain and cannot continue to exist if the brain is dead or no longer functions. The mind is a part of the soul, or created based on the self, which does not need the brain to exist because the soul is not entrapped within the body. It is the essence of one’s being which lives beyond the body. The mind is created from the linkage between both sides of the brain which connects the creative side with the logical side. This enables independent thinking which sets every person apart from each other. The mind is within the brain since birth and it already has the knowledge that enables the child to survive, like the brain does. The only difference is that the brain is focusing on the bodily functions whereas the mind is concerned with everything else. The majority of the mind, however, is a collection of learned experience which happens over a lifetime and from the creative
wonders that an individual mind can create. The mind is very much real but when it comes to testing the mind it is more of a leap of faith which will remain in your brain whether a person wants to acknowledge its existence or not.
