What are the three main views in the mind-brain problem?

Foundations of psychology
Chapter 7
The mind-brain problem, free will and consciousness

Introduction

Throughout history, humans have been impressed by their ability to reflect about themselves and the world around them.
Self: the feeling of being an individual with private experiences, feelings and beliefs, who interacts in a coherent and purposeful way with the environment.

Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views

• Dualism
  The mind (or soul) is something independent of the body
• Materialism
  The mind is nothing but a by-product of the biological processes taking place in a particular brain.
• Functionalism
  The mind is indeed realised in a brain, but it could be copied in any other brain.
  Just like information on a computer can be copied to other computers

Dualism: the mind is independent of the brain

Mind: aggregate of faculties humans (and animals) have to perceive, feel, think, remember and want.
Dualism: view of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body; central within religions and also in Descartes’ philosophy.

Dualism in religion and traditional philosophy

Religion

Dualism is central to religions.
They are grounded in the belief that people possess a divine soul created by God, which temporarily lives in the body, and which leaves the corpse upon its death.
The soul is what gives people their purpose and values in life.
It usually aims for the good, but can be tempted and seduced by evil forces.
This gave rise to the demonologist view of psychopathology.
Demonologists view: the conviction that mental disorders are due to possession by bad spirits.

Plato and Descartes

Dualism was central in the philosophies of Plato and Descartes.

• Plato maintained that the soul exists before, and survives the body.
  Human souls were leftovers of the soul of the cosmos and travelled between the cosmos and the human bodies they temporarily inhabited.
  • Human souls had knowledge of the realm of ideas
• According to Descartes humans were composed of a divine soul in a sophisticated body
  The soul was immaterial and formed the thinking part of the person.

Cartesian dualism: theories in which the mind is seen as radically different from the body and as independent of the biological processes in the