Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem in Philosophy
Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem
Physicalism (Materialism)
Physicalism, also known as materialism, posits that reality is fundamentally matter. Everything else is added because matter exists. The mind arises from matter (as proposed by Marx). Everything that exists depends on the subject. There is nothing more than matter. It makes the positive claim that all reality can be summed up by the scientific method. Physicalists are those who use science to understand reality.
Sensationalism
Sensationalism is a kind of spiritualism. It holds that existence can only be confirmed through sensory experience. If physicalism states that matter depends on the spiritual, sensationalism claims that the spiritual depends on the senses. Sensationalists doubt or believe only in what they can perceive. For them, reality is only what can be observed. For example, they believe in sound because they can hear it, and it requires perception.
Monism
Monism believes that mental processes are properties or results of the operation of the brain, which produces a special type of phenomenon explainable by its structures and connections.
Reductionist Materialism: The Identity Theory
Reductionist materialism, specifically the identity theory, states that states of consciousness are identical to certain neural processes.
Theory of Neural Firing
The theory of neural firing suggests that the subjective aspects of experience are related to changes in attention produced by the firing of neurons corresponding to those aspects of the state.
Central State Theory
The central state theory identifies mental states with states of the central nervous system, which mediates responses to stimuli.
Eliminative Materialism
Eliminative materialism denies the existence of the mental, asserting that all mental processes are actually neurobiological phenomena.
Emergentism
Emergentism acknowledges a biological basis for character but suggests that as we grow, develop, learn, and live, the mind emerges in the brain.
Emergentism
Emergentism affirms that there are levels of reality with different properties: the mental emerges from and depends on physical and biological processes, but its properties are qualitatively different.
Interactionist Emergentism
Popper believes that the mind arises through an indeterministic evolutionary process, becoming something more than a mere product of the brain.
Sperry’s View
Sperry proposes that consciousness emerges from brain organization, directing its steps.
Emergent Materialism
Bunge argues that all mental states are states of the central nervous system, a system that goes beyond the consideration of physical organizations. The mental is not independent but rather a systemic property of the central nervous system.
Structure
The brain is a physical structure that is enriched throughout its development.
Truth and Fitness
Truth is split into two aspects: the factual (only valid for what is observable), which involves an external object, and the subjective, which involves speech and representation of the object. It is considered true that a particular word corresponds to an image, an object that fits reality. When language lies, it does not align with reality. To determine if something is true, we compare it with reality. Truth depends on language, not on formal correspondence with reality. Correspondence depends on situations. We use words to describe the world, and to know if these words are true, we check them against reality. If we have invented the word, it cannot be objective.
Truth as Coherence
Hegel proposed that a person maintains a coherent set of ideas without contradiction.