Minds and Machines essays

Minds and Machines essays 1) Briefly describe Descartes view of the relation between mind and body. What, if anything, is wrong with this view? Rene Descartes view of the relation between the mind and body, is a very complicated one. However if one was to put it simply, Descartes view is that the mind and the body are separate substances (Grayling 2001 p, 1). This idea of the mind and body being separate entities is known as Dualism. Descartes claimed that because he could think of the mind and body as being apart from each other, then they could also exist apart (Mattey 2001 p, 10). Descartes also stated that human bodies are external in that they can be observed by others (Mattey 2001 p, 11). This ability to be observed, coupled with the thought that a body is a part of space, also labeled the body as extended and part of the physical world. Descartes also believed that the body was subordinate to mechanical laws (Ryle 1949 p,120). In contrast to the body being external, Descartes declared that the mind was internal, in that no one could observe the workings of the mind, aside from the person themselves (Mattey p, 11). The mind was said to be part of the mental world. By taking Descartes views into account, one could then conclude that a person is divided into two separate entities, the mind and the body. However Descartes definitions of the relationship between the mind and body, or more importantly the lack of, raised many problems for philosophers and people in general (Kihlstrom p, 1). One of the major problems for dualists, such as Descartes, to over come was initiated by the fact that the body and mind can interact (Kihlstrom p, 2). This interaction can be seen when one considers that the mind can control and cause actions in the body, for example the movement of ones arms or legs. It can also be seen that the body acts with the mind, ...