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Mind-Body, Problem? · Why We Do What We Do

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You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome to Why we do
0:16
what we do? I am your Trapped in My Mind host Abraham and I'm
0:22
your am I anything more than a body host Shane or psychology podcast. We
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talk about the things that people do and their feelings and their thoughts and whether
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or not those thoughts are biologically linked or maybe they're just existing out there in
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the ether. That's some of the stuff that we talk about. Yes,
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we do, which is always really fun. Maybe one day we'll talk about
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Plato's cave, but for now we are not talking about that. We are
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going to talk about how your brain and how your body are linked together or
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are they the same thing exactly? And if you're joining us for the first
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No homework and homework Day are the same thing, because that means that
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we're actually not talking about the holidays. We are talking about minds and
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bodies and problems mostly those two three are those through those two those three things
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linked together, the mind, the body, and the problem, if you
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will, and yeah, so that's what we're talking about today. If you
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some merch like and subscribe, leave a rating and review, tell a friend
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about us, all those things. I'll talk more about how you can support
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us at the end of this episode. But Shane kick us off with our
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mind body problem. In doing my research, I found this really great quote.
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I apologize because I cannot find who to attribute this quote to, But
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this quote goes something like this, the problem of understanding what the relation between
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the mind and the body is, or more precisely, whether mental phenomena are
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a subset of physical phenomena or not. End quote. That is the definition
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of the mind body problem. What we're trying to discover here and trying to
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understand here is that many people have discussed this idea that the mind, the
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idea of our mental phenomenon, our psychees are different than our physical bodies.
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They are separate entities, they are separate things, and they are not one
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and the same. They're not part of the entire organism. Yeah, and
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specifically, you might think of this as the mind as a thing manifest by
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the brain or is there a distinction there? And then example that is used
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to help illustrate argument is lightened sound. Even though the phenomena are distinctly different,
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they often occur together and create a specific environmental experience like lightning yay love,
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lightning cachao. The philosophical question of the mind body problem was originally developed
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by French philosopher Renee Descartes. I've seen this kind of pronounce a lot of
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different ways, but my understanding is it's deycart that's mine as well, Okay,
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good, And so this came up during the seventeenth century, and Descartes
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contributed a great deal to modern philosophy by focusing on epistemology, rationalism, and
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stoicism. So it's important to note that his work was directly opposed by folks
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in the empiricist school of thought like Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume,
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to name a few. But we're going to deep dive on some of
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his life and his work in a different episode. Right now, we're talking
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about kind of this idea that he posed, which is this idea of the
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mind body problem. The main point to this problem is the question are our
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mental states physical or metaphysical? And the reason that we arrive at this point
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is because the argument being made here is that the mind is separate from the
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brain. Hence the mind body question, if you will, and understanding like
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how would we even know is kind of the problem, or like what would
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it mean if it was separate? What would it mean if it was not?
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And that creates the sort of conundrum in terms of how do we try
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and understand this right And so this leads to this philosophy or this idea within
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psycho which is this idea of dualism. And we're going to talk about dualism
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and monism in a little bit, but there are a few different perspectives about
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this, and it comes from dualism space. There's substance dualism, property dualism,
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and physicalist reductionism. So substance dualism it comes from the idea that the
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mind and the body are two different substances. So this is kind of like
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when we talked about humors and we talked about all those things that people used
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to talk about when it came to like understanding how the body worked. The
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idea of substance dualism is that the mind and the body are two different substances,
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one being metaphysical and the other being physical. So there is a physical
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body and then your mind exists in a metaphysical plane. As a different substance
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than your own body. And then there's property dualism, and in this idea
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there is only one body, but mental phenomena cannot be characterized or limited to
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physical properties. Isn't that fun? And there's also physicalist reductionism, which means
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the properties of mental phenomenon can be described through physical properties. So I thought
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that was of an interesting one, and you might be going, well,
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these all seem similar enough, and that's kind of my experience with I don't
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know, just looking at philosophy in general, it's kind of like a lot
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of people have a lot of ideas about the same thing, and they just
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come up with a lot of different names about the same thing, and it's
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all really annoying. And that's why I don't spend a lot of time sitting
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in coffee shops talking to philosophers because it drives me nuts, because it's kind
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of like you're just saying this and they're like, but no, it's metaphysical.
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It's like, but no, you're saying this and that, And that's
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why I don't do this anymore. Well, I tend to love philosophy,
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but I think not in the sort of splitting hairs pontification that you kind of
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come to expect from questions like this one, the mind body problem, because
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it seems like it's where some of the conversations end up in some of the
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philosophical readings that I've been. I've experienced that I am, by no means
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an expert at all of the different philosophers who have ever existed. But it
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gets down to like these really nipicky definitions of this means this, therefore this
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conclusion. Sure, And someone else says, no, you know, A
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means something different, therefore different conclusion. And they're sort of arguing about whether
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A means this thing or this other thing. And it kind of doesn't matter
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because if the exemple simply say, you're essentially saying that if there is this
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definition, then there's this outcome. If there's a different definition, there's a
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different outcome, and it is okay for those things to be different. Anyway,
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we don't need to get all into that point. Being that, I
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think a core of understanding this problem, this idea of this the conundrum of
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the mind body experience and link, is that there is an accounting of mental
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and physical phenomenon occurring as distinct separate experiences regardless of relation. The mind operates
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as a separate research interest different from the brain, rather than as a function
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of neurological processes. And that second part is sort of physicalist reductionist approach of
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saying, I think is a function of brain process is therefore the mind question
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is a brain question, which means there's not a distinction between the two.
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Or philosophically, is the mind something wholly unique and special that like, we
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need a brain four but it is its own thing, right, You're gonna
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see a lot of the discussion in this being that the mind is separate and
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it is not a brain problem. That's kind of a dualist approach or dualism
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approach, where the monism approach is that your brain itself is matter. It
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is a substance, and anything that comes of the mind is a product of
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this physical entity, which is also part of your body, which means that
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you are you are one. Your mind and your brain and your body are
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all one together. As it's kind of like Jesus, you know, the
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whole trinity, Yeah, the Holy Trinity, Like this is kind of the
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holy Trinity of psychology. Your mind, your brain, and your body are
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all together, they're all linked, and they're all holy. Fair enough,
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the Catholic Church is going to come after this podcast so quick. I'm waiting
10:07
for it. I'm waiting for some bishop to show up and be like,
10:11
the Pope is mad at you, and then we would say, can we
10:13
interview the Pope and that won't that won't happen. I would definitely say,
10:16
the Pope listens to our podcast. Yeah, this comes as a great surprise
10:24
to me that he listens to any podcasts, let alone in English speaking one,
10:28
let alone our English speaking podcast. Listen. When we look at our
10:31
data, we've got listeners all over the world, and there is one specific
10:35
listener in Vatican City, which is really surprising, and that's the Pope.
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Just one. Yeah, that's pretty good. I never looks to see if
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we have listeners in Vatican City. If you, if you are, you
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should definitely write to us and let us know and we will tip our hat
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to you. Yes, please, Pope. Anyway. Yeah, so we've
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been talking about this idea of a break in the physical structure of our body
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and the nebulous structure of the mind, and the break in the audio experience
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of the podcast and the advertisers that must scissor their way in. Okay,
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So we were trying to leave it a little bit on the cliffhanger of what
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of dualism versus monism or monism, and it's one of them, packing the
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difference between these two because so much of the philosophy on this topic relies on
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a debate or distinction between those schools of thought if you're in the dualism camp
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and the monism camp. Yes, there's a really great image that I think
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if you pull it up here, it kind of gives a nice little diagram
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of kind of understanding the concept of dualism versus monism and looking at the different
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types of monism and what that looks like, which is kind of fun.
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It breaks down Cartesian dualism versus physicalism, idealism and neutral monism and all that
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stuff. And so there's a really nice little diagram that is, you know,
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over simplifies how the brain works, but it is fun to kind of
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look at. Yeah. Yeah, I think what we got to start with
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is this idea of dualism, and dualism posits that the mind and body are
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two distinct things, like we kind of mentioned, So I already mentioned this
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idea of substance dualism, which is basically saying that your mind and your body
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are two different substances. They're made up of entirely different things. I always
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found this interesting within philosophy, this idea that there is kind of these these
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substances, these ideas, like forms and stuff like that, that exist on
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this metaphysical plane. Us as humans kind of pull stuff from that. We
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pull ideas, we pull thoughts, we pull things from these different kinds of
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planes. And that's what substance dualism really gets into when it comes to the
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mind, is that mind is directly linked to these metaphysical substances, the metaphysical
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plane, and we have to pull so much of what our thoughts are and
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our feelings are, and our psychees are from those places, and that is
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how we become planes walkers. Ah, I like you as a magic the
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gathering joke for those of you who didn't know. Yeah, so we already
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talked about these, but just as a quick I mean, it's important,
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I think, to come back to them, because this is how we're unpacking
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this discussion here is you had mentioned substance dualism. Then there's the property dualism,
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and this is the difference between the mind and the body are in its
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properties, not in the physical substance. So we're basically saying, like,
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yes, okay, mind is brain stuff. That's fine, but the properties
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of it are still unique and wholly distinct from the physical properties, right in
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terms of the property features of it, if you will. I mean this
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is also related to the idea of emergentism, but that's not really something we're
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going to unpack in this discussion. Yeah, you're also going to learn there's
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a lot of isms in this. Yeah, so like I think that happens
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a lot in philosophy. There's like stoicism and emergentism and dualism and monism and
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all that funs. And you'll see there's even more we're going to unpack.
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It's like Pokemon, there's so many now in monism, I'm sorry, there's
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there's also predicate dualism. We're not going to get to monoism yet. Predicated
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dualism simply means it doesn't matter if the mind and the brain are different substances.
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We cannot reduce mental descriptions to physical descriptions. And that's kind of different
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than what we talked about the property physical reductionism is what I mean predicated dualism
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is the idea that it really doesn't matter whether your mind is metaphysical or not.
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It doesn't matter if your body is different or not. You just cannot
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explain mental processes through physical descriptions, which you know, for my neurology folks
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out here, isn't that fun? Yes, you can. I just hear
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all of our neurology folks going, ah, neuroscience is like just up in
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arms about this. They're like, there's no way. Well, and that
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brings us, I think, to the part where most of us maybe find
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ourselves, particularly those who are in the neurology side of things. And this
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is monism. This is the existence is attributed to oneness or singleness. There
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are varieties of monism that will unpack really quick, but this essentially says that
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the mind and the body are not separate. The brain and the experience of
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mind is just a product of brain. Essentially, the organism is the sort
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of central important figure here, and the mind is just an experience that gets
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to come with that. Yeah. As I was going through these notes and
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kind of putting this together, I was thinking that there are some people that
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would have an absolute meltdown about like thinking about how your mind and your brain
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work and consciousness works and all this stuff, And like, I don't think
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that people really think enough about that. But there is like this level where
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you go, oh, like, my entire awareness is just electrical currents coursing
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through meat. People just kind of like they lose it after that, right,
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you know, when I'm thirty eight and I've had this existential crisis where
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I go, I am simply just organic matter with electricity in it. And
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that is a strange feeling to have. And so when you get into philosophy,
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it makes you do that. I think. I don't know if you
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have that experience, but it makes me do that totally. Where I go,
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Yeah, where I go, what does it mean to be? Yeah,
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you know, I think it. It maybe belies our faithful or lacked
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of leanings, if you will, But it gets into the like, I
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am basically a bunch of chemical reactions that will eventually stop happening, and all
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the experiences that I have as that are just are there just a fleeting byproduct
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of the fact that those things occur, which to me raises the inquiry about
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like what other life could be when it's if you think about it as being
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sort of a chemical reaction type process. Sure, And I'm like, well,
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there's lots of chemical reaction type processes out there. Do they all have
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an experience? Like? Where does it get to the point where I then
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think about this, like I don't know if like fire is a chemical reaction,
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is it thinking? Does it have like a life? But doesn't seem
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to have a physical structure like a brain, So maybe not Anyway, that's
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the like, these are things that we think about. If you've been smoking
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a joint and I blew your mind, yeah, I'm sorry, yeah yeah,
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Or if you're you're not smoking a joint and now you're having a crisis,
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Like it's okay, we'll get through it. It's just be present,
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like reorient do the five senses exercise, you'll be back. Let's look about
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monism. There's priority monism, which means all things go back to the source.
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Basically, what that means is when we all die, we return to
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prior matter forms, which you know, I am good with that. Like
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that feels that feels right. We're all stardust, baby, Yeah, but
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aren't we already matter forms, Like, how do we return to matter forms?
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That would imply that we're not already matter forms. Oh yeah, that's
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a good point. You're better at philosophy than I am. The next one
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has existence monism on This is the idea that the universe is a single thing
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and everything is a subset of that said thing. I find some that makes
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some sense to me. I can get them bordered with that. Yeah,
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I feel peace with that. We're all one. It's also a very Buddhist
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philosophy, right, which is kind of nice. Yeah, there's substance monism.
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It means only one kind of substance exists and everything is made up of
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that substance dark matter. Yeah, we're all dark matter. And this is
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actually really this is a really great argument against the mind body problem, since
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it suggests that, like, we're all made up of either mind or matter.
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Like it's basically just saying, though that we are all matter, we
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are all one substance. There cannot be two substances, which means the mind
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cannot be separate from the body. I see, I see, okay,
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got it. Yeah, So it's sort of challenging the very premise of the
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idea of the mind body problem. Yeah, yes, of dualism specifically,
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not the mind body problem, which I mean, right arguably is dualism,
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right, all right, so then we have a dual aspect monism, which
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almost sounds like contradiction in terms, but all right, so this is mental
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and physical phenomena are two aspects made from the same substance, right, That
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sort of I think comes back to this idea of like having different properties maybe
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but they're still essentially the same thing. They just are maybe described differently.
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And then there's neutral monism, which is that reality is neither mental nor physical,
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which is I think really fun because when you start kind of like questioning
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what is reality? I mean, let me pause right there. Don't start
19:14
questioning reality because I don't want you all like we've already kind of put we've
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taken you on this like Bill and Ted's Bogus journey type of experience through philosophy
19:22
and existential crises. So don't start questioning reality. But if you want to
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pause it and come back to this, there is a fun thing about like
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your body existing in a space and your and your brain and kind of your
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consciousness existing in a space that you kind of go, well, what is
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reality? Let's define reality? Can we even define reality? And then kind
19:41
of spiraloing that way, But that's those are conversations that are better left to
19:45
mushrooms or acid or lead, Like, spend some time on that stuff and
19:51
do it if you're gonna, if you're gonna have that conversation. I think
19:53
we've maybe over prescribed the use of illicit substances in this episode. Do it
20:00
where it's legal, is what I meant to say. I mean, I
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would say that I think if again, whether we want to go down this
20:07
philosophical rabbit hole or anybody wants to join us is up for debate. But
20:11
in thinking about reality and when we say reality, like that's just a word,
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like if you really think about that, Like all the things we would
20:19
try and describe about what reality is or what it could mean or and all
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of that, it all comes down to the fact that we're just depending on
20:27
language to represent a thing that is abstract and like we only have a concept
20:33
of we don't really have it. It's not a reference to a tangible thing,
20:37
really, right, It's kind of referenced. It's a reference maybe to
20:40
the idea that all things are tangible. But again, if it's an idea,
20:45
that's just that's not an actual thing, right, An idea is not
20:48
a thing. And so if we just think again, sorry, going down
20:52
the rabbit hole here or the wormhole wherever, how whatever you choose to call
20:56
it, it essentially means that we have nothing to say about reality because nothing
21:02
we say is anything like it is part of the fabric of reality. And
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it doesn't even matter what those words are, right. That's what I'm saying
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here is that like trying to distinguish those things as if we can talk about
21:15
reality by stepping outside of it somehow means that we ultimately would have nothing to
21:22
say. We'd simply observe. We just kind of sit in the world that
21:26
exists around us. Sure, and that gets to there's a whole principle like
21:30
down the philosophical rabbit hole that I think this has been something that J.
21:34
R. Canter sort of raised that I think was criticized by people who sort
21:38
of say, like, if we decide that we're going to sit here and
21:41
say nothing, we're going to accomplish nothing as a science. We don't need
21:45
to get into that debate now, But I think just sort of saying like
21:48
philosophically understanding that as we try and started packing what reality is, we're just
21:56
using words and those words don't have any inherent properties that make that particularly illuminate
22:00
or change anything about how the universe works, right Right. I think one
22:06
of the things I struggle with any sort of conversation about philosophy is that I
22:10
come from such a grounded like my training is such a grounded science, right,
22:15
And there is a philosophy of science, and there's a philosophy of all
22:18
that behind it, and and I understand that, like so much of psychology
22:22
and behaviorism and all this stuff does come from philosophical roots, right, Like,
22:26
we can't ignore philosophy as part of our scientific upbringing, if you will.
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I feel like for me, I am so far removed from the original
22:36
teachings of philosophy influencing psychology in that way that it's almost like it doesn't make
22:41
any sense anymore to me, if that makes sense, Like you know what
22:45
I mean. Like it's I think it's one of those things where it's kind
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of like when you read when you read older literature, and the languaging and
22:53
the wording and the experiences are just so unique and different to that time that
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today, in modern society, we cannot relate to that because we understand so
23:04
much more about stuff, you know, or like, we have a different
23:07
understanding of it. And I think that's kind of my overall experience with philosophy,
23:11
and I think that's why I struggle with it. And now when it
23:15
comes to ethics and having questions of ethics and stuff like that, I feel
23:18
like ethics is a different conversation because I think that it's still very ever present
23:21
in our world and we spend a lot of time talking about ethics and ethical
23:23
behavior and what does that mean? That's such a that's so in strength in
23:26
what we do. But all this other stuff, I'm just kind of like,
23:29
I don't spend any time talking about this because it's we know so much
23:33
about this stuff now that it almost makes the underlying philosophy for those things obsolete
23:37
in a way, not not entirely, but just like obsolete or like kind
23:41
of a historical ralic, if you will. So here's where I come down
23:45
with that, because like, on the one hand, I think that was
23:48
a beautifully circuitous route too. I think the next discussion we want to have,
23:52
and I say beautifully because I really like how that created a nice segue
23:56
into this, which I think speaks to the fact that if we are looking
24:02
at this from a very pragmatic lens and thinking to what extent do we need
24:08
this to be effective as scientists? Right? And I think I generally am
24:14
a big defender of the philosophy of things because philosophy essentially sets the limits on
24:21
what our definitions are. It sort of helps us understand how do we keep
24:25
our language about our field consistent and useful? I think, and by agreeing
24:33
what warrants a discussion and what doesn't, like what kind of things are inside
24:37
of the realm of what makes sense for us to try and unpack and consider
24:41
and what things don't, And I think that there is like and then how
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do we then unpack those things? And so that's essentially what I think I
24:48
would I would defend philosophy. And I don't think that's actually different in any
24:52
way than the point that you're making. But I think, as I said,
24:55
it brings us around to the fact that, like, when we're thinking
24:57
about pragmatically, what does it matter if we understand, like, if we're
25:04
acting with respect to the circumstances of what is working and what it isn't in
25:10
our field and our practice, Like we kind of can just chase that,
25:14
right, We can kind of just follow along with like do what makes sense
25:18
when things are working, and then that's like, yeah, that's good,
25:21
and we try something it's not working, like okay, we discard that part
25:23
of it, and it just comes back to how do we be effective at
25:27
our jobs in our field. So I would I would defend the use of
25:32
philosophy as I think that it sets a critically useful foundation and that we do
25:37
want to stay in touch with that and the sort of really big heavy ideas
25:44
about what it means to talk about what reality is probably doesn't affect very much
25:49
of our day to day if that, if you will, sure, And
25:52
so that really then brings us to the point of as a general rule,
25:55
it seems like the mind body problem isn't a problem, right. It seems
25:59
that the interactions between our physical and our psychological functions doesn't really change our experience
26:04
when we're sad, mental, we cry, physical, All of those things
26:10
happen inside of a single monistic experience, if you will. That is part
26:15
of us having a brain and a body and moving through the circumstances of our
26:18
environments. Right, Maybe something I should say is, like, I definitely
26:22
I'm a believer of like respecting the classics too, Like so like I do,
26:26
I do have that, Like like you can't, you can't go forward
26:30
with that understanding the classics. I just like I guess And that's where you're
26:33
you pin it down. It's like I tend to be very pragmatic in the
26:37
way that I look at the world, and so like I don't find like
26:41
day to day use in philosophical discussions, whereas like you know, I'm not
26:45
saying they're not useful, it's just not where I find the most because I
26:51
tend to be very solution focused. So I don't have that, Like,
26:53
you know, what we should talk about. We should talk about why everything
26:56
matters, you know, Like I don't have that. I don't have that
27:00
because on a day to day basis, I'm like, why does this matter
27:00
for you today? In this space? Let's work on this. You know,
27:04
I think most people would agree with you, and I think that that's
27:07
perfectly reasonable. Yeah, so I think we're on the same page here.
27:10
Yeah, so there we go. We made it, so we have arrived.
27:11
I love it. I don't think that this podcast would be as successful
27:15
as it was if you and I disagreed on literally everything, so right,
27:19
like such a fundamental thing. Yeah, yeah, it's good that we have
27:22
alignment. We have landed in a nice cathartic place, and that's an okay
27:26
time to give sort of a cushion to the advertisers. Cushions not the word,
27:38
but like a space for them. Yeah, but that's all the break
27:41
we need. We're back, Yeah, welcome back. So in this section,
27:45
what we're talking about now is kind of what all of the mind body
27:49
problem issues imply. So today, what we understand is that mental processes are
27:55
explained as causal factors for biological changes, so we know that when bylogical changes
28:00
happen, these mental things happen. We understand that there are diagnoses and disorders
28:06
that are directly related to neurological functioning or lack thereof, or discrepant types of
28:11
functioning. Essentially, what we're kind of saying is that the mind is the
28:15
thinking, feeling entity of our experience. Our bodies are the only biological vessels
28:19
that we have, but the mind body problem implies that they don't think or
28:25
feel like our body doesn't think or feel when our mind does. And that's
28:29
kind of what the mind body problem is trying to get at, is that
28:32
our mental processes are not related to our biological processes in that way. So
28:37
the reason our bodies can do anything is because, and we know this,
28:41
the reason our bodies can do anything is because our mind creates these sequence of
28:45
effects that lead to bodies reacting or so on and so forth. That's kind
28:48
of what it's saying, right, we know today that all of it's LinkedIn,
28:51
all of it's looped in together. These these chemical reactions, these processes
28:55
are happening, and they are influencing the way that we work and we move
28:59
and we and we adapt to our environment. But also we know that the
29:02
environment acts upon our bodies. So there are just so many things that are
29:06
going on. It's so a mesh that, like, I think it's genuinely
29:10
impossible to untangle them in the way that they try to originally. Yeah,
29:15
assuming that they are tangled in the first place or not, you know that
29:18
they're may be distinct. And I think we're starting to get to what to
29:21
me is the death blow to the idea of the mind body problem, because
29:26
we were starting to beg the question, how could something that is non physical,
29:32
in this case, the mind, right, influence something physical, which
29:34
we're talking about is the body. And today we spent quite a bit of
29:38
time discussing the impact of language on our behavior. Right, We've talked about
29:42
that quite a bit inside of this, But we might argue that there's a
29:45
difference because we can monitor and evaluate things like thinking, language, et cetera
29:52
that we couldn't before, particularly if we didn't have like a mind, if
29:56
you will. So they're no longer non physical compared to descriptions of the mind,
30:03
and so we're starting to get to the point of understanding the major flaw.
30:07
I think a dualism is trying to assume that there are two separate planes
30:11
of existence that are interacting with one another somehow, right. I think one
30:17
of the fun things that's kind to come out of the mind body problem is
30:18
this understanding of the Turing test. You're not familiar with it. It's basically
30:22
the idea that we can create a machine that sufficiently mimics the mind and how
30:26
the mind works. And so what we've found is that we can get pretty
30:30
close, or we can do certain things that calculate and compute and do all
30:34
these different things. It doesn't necessarily mimic the complexity of a brain. And
30:38
we had our conversation with our friend about AI and what that means, and
30:44
kind of like that the fact that AI is not quite as close as people
30:47
think it is to mimicking the human brain. But if the mind is a
30:51
separate entity, then we would not be able to create machines that could mimic
30:53
the mind. If the mind is a metaphysical thing, then we would not
30:56
be able to create machines that mimic it, because that is taking something that
31:00
is metaphysical and turning it into and moving it into the physical plane. So
31:04
like to me, as I'm looking at the Turing test as like an example
31:07
of how the mind body problem is not really a problem. The reason I
31:11
kind of land on that is because if the mind is a unique human experience,
31:15
then we wouldn't be able to get close to it with machinery. I
31:18
don't know. That's kind of the way I land on that. You're not
31:21
wrong, And I think that it starts to get into a discussion I've had
31:25
about whether or not AI could become conscious and sort of thinking about the part
31:30
of the issue with that whole idea at all is the misunderstanding of like all
31:37
of the things that create the experience of being sort of conscious and human,
31:44
if you will, that are unique to us. And one of those is
31:47
being centrally located in a point in space and time, right, And AI
31:51
exists in like an undefined network of sort of invisible space. Right. So
31:56
I can't even orient to the world in the same way that we can because
32:00
the world does not sit in a position relative to aif and that's we don't
32:05
need to get down that rabbit hole anymore. But yeah, exactly, And
32:07
you know, I think for those people who want to sort of pedantically write
32:10
in yes, we understand that the Turing test was more about can any kind
32:15
of machinery trick someone into believing that it is human? Right, And that's
32:21
that's sort of what the test part of it implies. I think that just
32:24
leave it for now, understanding that what we're saying is that that suggests that
32:29
it is creating sort of an artificial version of a human mind, right,
32:34
which would also then mean that it's creating an artificial metaphysical plane. Right.
32:38
Yes, So it's worth I think diving into this idea of maybe our philosophy
32:46
around science and understanding the world and our worldview, but also understanding kind of
32:52
how things have shifted and changed since Descartes came out and started talking about this,
32:57
And just like old psychological viewpoints, what we have found is that there
33:00
are certain aspects of this that are not observable. The mind itself is not
33:04
observable, it's not measurable. Rather, what we understand about it today is
33:07
that there are complex neurological processes that occur that can be observed through special interiitation.
33:14
We can actually observe neurons firing and synapses fire, and we can observe
33:17
all these things happening, But we can't observe the substance that is the mind
33:22
that is often discussed in this. We can't actually see the metaphysical substance that
33:25
is kind of discussed as part of this mind body problem, unless you,
33:30
of course mean the brain and that we can't observe. Yeah, that's a
33:35
cool substance. This question is strictly a dualism problem in a philosophical sense.
33:40
Monistic philosophy doesn't ask the same question, but rather indicates that the mind and
33:45
body are part of the same system. And I think there's a lot of
33:47
honestly, there's a lot of objective evidence for this too, because you don't
33:52
get to have any evidence of there being a mind without a body, right,
33:57
and the body is a prerequisite can do for mind, And I think
34:01
in addition to that it is the consideration of thinking. We also see that
34:07
the effect of damage to the body has a marked and observable like particularly the
34:14
brain. I marked an observable relation to then how what looks like what might
34:17
be considered the mind shows up for us, which is to say, how
34:21
people behave, how what they say, what they seem, what they suggest
34:24
that they think based on their actions. And it just makes philosophical sense too,
34:30
of like, if the brain is the necessary and requisite feature of this,
34:35
and we out of that we get an experience that we've decided to call
34:37
mind, even though it's just an experience, it's just what the brain's doing,
34:40
right, that's just the thing that's happening. It has to be part
34:45
of the same thing. Like, I don't know how we'd possibly extract those
34:47
two systems other than hypothetically and arbitrarily, right, And again, I know
34:52
this is my bias, and it comes from my training and my worldview and
34:54
all that. But in the applied science world, there are few things that
34:58
I think are worth getting back to and understanding about, like kind of the
35:01
functionality or the practicality of this. And first is that we don't really have
35:06
an agreed upon definition of mind, of the mind itself as an empirical phenomenon,
35:10
just like we don't for consciousness. This is something that we really struggle
35:15
with spending time defining and describing in a way that's agreed upon within the community,
35:21
within the science community. So we don't have a really great way to
35:25
even study this concept of mind because we can't agree on what it is to
35:30
begin with. Right, we know that the body reacts to the environment,
35:35
which does account for public and sort of private events and stimuli, and that
35:39
it therefore works like the rest of our behavior works, whether or not sometimes
35:45
we can directly identify or label that that's the case. Right And as of
35:50
this recording, which is in twenty twenty four, you know, because when
35:52
maybe people discover this podcast in one hundred years, they're going to be like,
35:55
oh my god, they were so wrong. Right, But right now,
35:59
our understanding of how the brain works in our minds and kind of all
36:04
of that stuff is essentially a neurological or neuroscience question, and our neurology is
36:09
incredibly complex and it's uniquely based in biological processes, and anything in and around
36:15
our brains are all part of biological functions that are shaped by experiences and genetics.
36:20
So these kind of the nature and nurture elements of the way that our
36:24
brains work is super important to account for this, and they can all be
36:28
observed in at least some fashion. I will say really quickly, as we're
36:32
sort of getting to the end of this discussion, that I personally don't have
36:37
a problem with using the termmind in the cultural sense, and I think that
36:42
we can understand that, like going back to what Skinner has said about thinking
36:47
about this, what other psychologists have said, I think Canter said something to
36:52
the along these lines is that, like the word mind is just a word,
36:57
and so if we look at the conditions under which we use the word
37:00
mind, that helps illustrate and illuminate what it is we're talking about, and
37:06
then I think helps unpack the fact that like using the word mind can be
37:10
a useful pragmatic thing to do. Right, we can talk about the mind
37:15
as this abstract idea. It's just not a technically precise term, And that's
37:19
okay. We need technically imprecise terms because we want to have sort of a
37:22
flexible colloquial way of discussing things. Sure, And so I don't have a
37:28
problem with the word mind or using the word mind even to talk about psychological
37:31
phenomenon. We just also understand that it doesn't mean that it's in any way
37:37
separate or living in a separate plane of existence. It's fairly harmless, yeah,
37:42
to use the term mind, Like, I don't think it's like one
37:44
of those things where it's like it's not facilitating communication showing up and causing a
37:47
problem, right, Like using this term mind and kind of like having those
37:52
discussions is not in itself a problem. I think where it becomes a problem
37:55
where is when we spend time and resources trying to study it that we don't
38:00
really need to like from like that really core issue of the mind itself being
38:07
an empirical phenomenon. I don't think that that's necessary. Like, I think
38:09
that we are doing that research in better ways in different fields without having to
38:15
go down that route of studying the mind by itself, and I think that's
38:19
kind of where I land on that too, is like use mind all day,
38:22
like oh you're you're like, you know, your mind is racing,
38:24
Like please use all the idioms and all that stuff. We're good with that,
38:28
just don't spend time researching it in that way, like talk to the
38:30
neurologist for a little bit, you know. Yeah, And if we are
38:34
going to research it, it's understanding, like how can we leverage this for
38:37
more practical utility if we feel like we need to? So yes, cool,
38:42
I think where again we find ourselves in the same page, even if
38:45
it takes us a minutes to get there. Yeah, exactly, we do
38:49
have some interesting tidbits. It feels like this could be an appropriate time.
38:52
I mean, is there ever an appropriate time for AD breaks? No,
38:55
but this could be a sort of if a natural stopping point, yeah,
39:00
to do the ADS thing. Okay, so let's get to some interesting tidbits
39:10
here. As I was researching this, I learned that there were so many
39:14
isms, especially like in the world of philosophy, there was just as a
39:16
couple of examples, there was interactionism, there was epiphenomenalism, phenomenalism, epi
39:24
phenomenalism, epiphenomenalism. Okay, that's the same. To thank you, Abraham.
39:29
I appreciate that psychophysical parallelism. There is double aspectism, occasionalism, neo
39:35
platoism, nondualism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think
39:37
we've got enough though. I think that's all we need right now. We
39:40
already mentioned stoicism and all those things too, So there's a lot. There's
39:45
a lot there when it comes to philosophy, and prism is a prism is
39:49
a good is a good word? I like prism. Same. So Descartes
39:54
had some prevailing health conditions that allowed for accommodations at his school. His accommodat
40:00
he was allowed to sleep in in extra five hours compared to other students.
40:04
So that's nice. Isn't that great? Wow? What is accommodation? Like?
40:07
When I was reading that, I was like, man, how do
40:08
you get that today? Like right now, accommodations in college are like you
40:13
get time and a half on a quiz, right, And it's like that's
40:16
not or flexible due dates. It's like, no, I want extra sleep
40:20
time. Thank you, yes for all things. For work, for appointments,
40:24
five hour cushion of sleep time. Please. I'm going to get my
40:28
doctor to write a prescription for that. Let's see if that works. Ooh
40:30
good idea. Yeah. So I think to kind of wrap up this entire
40:35
discussion, and I think that you all need to send us metals and accolades
40:38
and stuff for getting an episode under an hour, Like that's something that we
40:44
have not done in some time. So you're welcome for that. But a
40:46
couple of things that I think are important to kind of take away from this.
40:50
I think philosophy is cool, and I think it is important to have
40:52
those discussions, But as somebody who tends to be solution focused and kind of
40:58
like in the now, like I have a hard time entertaining those conversations if
41:01
it doesn't lead to something that I can take into a practical setting. And
41:05
so like that's where and we kind of like discussed that a little bit earlier.
41:09
What I find is that for me, a lot of these intellectual exercises
41:14
tend to lose their stimulating properties when we get when we start getting into the
41:16
science, so we can have those discussions, but when we get into the
41:20
science of it and kind of what we know today. I'm like, well,
41:22
that doesn't make any sense anymore. That's kind of lost to history because
41:25
we understand this thing better, and Kard offered a great question that today is
41:30
more thoroughly answered than it was during his time. I think that we have
41:32
a better understanding of the mind quote unquote the mind and body problem today than
41:37
we ever did. And that's true for most of the philosophy questions that we
41:39
came up with in psychology. But I do think that that's an important takeaway.
41:43
It's like, while that was a great exercise in the seventeenth century,
41:45
today we understand so much more about it that that question is no longer relevant
41:50
to me. That mind body problem was never really a problem. Ah.
41:55
One last sort of take on point I wanted to land on, which maybe
42:00
should have been more part of the actual discussion, but it is the in
42:04
a dualistic sense. There's sort of two major problems. One is that if
42:07
you assume that you have two separate things that are existing in sort of different
42:14
realms, if you will, different realities. We know that they're linked,
42:16
but we're treating them as if they're separate. You then have to have to
42:20
assume even if we assume that they're in the same reality, but they're somehow
42:22
not implicitly and inextricably linked the mind and the body, is that we then
42:29
have to account for what the mind does using a somehow different set of variables
42:35
than what the body does, what the circumstances are for the physical features of
42:39
things, and sort of what then happens is we then have to say,
42:43
like, there's something that accounts for the mind and something different that accounts for
42:47
the body, And as far as we can actually tell, there is no
42:52
separate set of circumstances that account for the mind, right, And it doesn't
42:54
it really doesn't make sense because then again we're assuming that like what happens to
42:59
the body is irrelevant for what happens with the mind, and we know that
43:01
what happens the body is the only thing that matters as far as what happens
43:07
to the mind, right, And so there's the problem of cause of fact
43:09
relations sort of across these planes of reality or existence or or like how they're
43:15
supposed to be separate. And then there's also the problem of understanding how the
43:19
different variables must affect those things when they're different realms, and that, to
43:22
me is the killing blow to the idea of dualism, is that we then
43:28
they have to have different mechanisms of circumstance that apply to them uniquely and differently
43:32
and separately, and they have to somehow influence each other across that thin membrane
43:38
of reality that seems to separate them. And I think that that just doesn't
43:43
that doesn't make any sense, Like we just can't even consistently assume that.
43:45
So right, I think you nailed it. It don't make no sense such
43:51
a philosophy heavy episode. I hope that I love this kind of stuff personally.
43:55
I hope that it was at least intellectually stimulating for most of you.
43:59
I think they are going to be people who hear this who are like hardcore
44:02
on the camp of know the mind is separate and the thing is like fine,
44:07
just just try, you know, consider unpacking it in the way that
44:08
we've described here. I think, you know, try and understands like the
44:13
dualistic problem that it arises is treating them as separate. And then the people
44:16
who are very firmly in the camp of like I think where we're at,
44:21
which is the monistic perspective, as these are all sort of part of the
44:23
same thing. Either they'll have heard this and say, yeah, of course
44:27
everybody knows that to turn it off, or they'll be like, Okay,
44:30
I haven't thought about it that way. I'm hoping you're in the latter camp,
44:32
most of you that this was interesting enough to maintain your attention and not
44:37
so philosophy heavy that you your eyes are watering at this point, right,
44:42
you know, And again, it's just one of those things where we are
44:44
a psychology podcast. This is a question that comes up in psychology and it
44:47
has for centuries, so it's worth spending a little bit of time talking about
44:52
it in current context. Yeah, and I would say that for the most
44:55
part, as I think you pointed this out earlier, most people aren't really
45:00
having a lot of this conversation too much. But I have heard people espouse
45:05
the idea that the mind and the body are separate entities very recently, like
45:08
within the last six months, on like a podcast, So it's this is
45:13
not a totally dead notion, and that's why it felt relevant to bring it
45:16
up and discuss it, right exactly. Okay, Well, if you're still
45:22
with us, congratulations, you are a trooper. Glad you made it through
45:25
this, this journey with us, Glad to have you here. That was
45:29
fun for me hopefully for you too, me too. And so if you
45:32
did like what we did here today and you're like, yes, more of
45:36
that, please, I want my eyes to water all the time. You
45:38
can join us on Patreon. You can support us by picking up some march.
45:43
You can leave us a rating and review, subscribe, give someone a
45:46
giant gift and tell them about this philosophy heavy podcast you heard today. All
45:52
those things. And if you do join us on Patreon, then I will
45:54
read your name. I will herald your name in fact, if that makes
45:59
any sense at all with us. List of people who are just generous,
46:01
wonderful people who support us and we really appreciate them, and that is Mike,
46:06
m Meghan, Layla, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua,
46:09
Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, Christy and Michelle.
46:15
Thank you all. You are the best. Love y'all. Also,
46:19
I need my team of people to help me with this, Otherwise I would
46:22
be talking into a microphone, not even bothering to edit it and send it
46:24
out into the world as just one person's stream of consciousness and nobody would listen.
46:30
So thank you everybody who helps me with this show, which is Shane
46:32
and I do writing in fact checking. Shane, you took the lead on
46:36
this one this time. Thank you so much for recording with me today and
46:38
for your work on this. Thank you. Justin Greenhouse is our audio editor
46:43
and making Sound Good magician, So thank you Justin. That's his job role,
46:47
making sound good, make sound good. That was the whole job description.
46:52
And our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. We do have some recommendations
46:58
which if you're joining us for the first time and you probably skipped all the
47:01
way to the end because I didn't billboard this soon enough, we like to
47:05
recommend some things. Is there anything Shane that I forgot it you would like
47:08
to add before we recommend those things. Nope, I think we're good recommendations.
47:21
So. I recently finished a book called Blackhouse by Stephen King and Peter
47:25
Straub. I loved it so much. Here's the thing. You have heard
47:31
me. Everybody here has heard me, and you and I share this interest.
47:35
We have a shared interest about the Dark Tower. Yeah, Stephen King's
47:37
a Dark Tower, and how great that magnum Opus is of Stephen King's Well,
47:43
if you're familiar with Stephen King's work, he does all kinds of books
47:46
and all kinds of works that are tangentially related to the Dark Tower, because
47:50
all things serve the Beam. Well. Blackhouse is a sequel to the book
47:54
Talisman. Talisman was a tie into early Dark Tower. Blackhouse is a direct
48:01
tie in to Dark Tower. And it is so good. It is the
48:07
most explicit Dark Tower book that's not a Dark Tower book that I have ever
48:12
read. Okay, I mean when I say explicit, I'm talking about It
48:15
mentions breakers, it mentions in world and midworld and end world. It mentions
48:19
the Baronies, it mentions gun slingers and the Crimson King. It's all there,
48:22
and it's beautiful and it was so good. And this is it's cool
48:25
because this book is more of a detective story that involves Dark Tower weirdness.
48:30
It's done so so well and it's it's it was the writing and it is
48:36
beautiful. Some of my favorite characters ever are in this book, this group
48:39
called the thunder Five, which are like these really intelligent bikers. Like it
48:44
kind of subverts the idea of what bikers are. They're like really tough,
48:45
badass bikers, but they like spend their time sitting in a bar talking philosophy.
48:51
It's like poetry and stuff. It's they're so good. It's a really
48:53
great book. You have to read The Talisman to get a better feel for
48:58
this one because it is a sequel. But it's a great, great read
49:00
and I recommend it to everybody for sure. Sounds like you probably need to
49:05
have read the Dark Tower books as well. It helps. Okay, but
49:08
this book actually so This book though, came out before Wolves of the Kala,
49:14
so it came out after the fourth It came out in the middle of
49:16
the Dark Tower series, before The Breaker showed up, before all that stuff
49:22
came out. So like, like, you can read it without having the
49:24
understanding, but it is enhanced by having the understanding of the Dark Tower.
49:29
Okay, all right, good to know. I am intrigued. The Black
49:31
House by Stephen King and Peter Straub m hmm, okay, I am recommending
49:37
a board game back on brand for me. This one is it's been out
49:40
for a little while. It's still pretty new though. I think it came
49:43
out within the last few months. Really this is a board game called The
49:47
Fox Experiments. It's based on these If people are familiar with this history,
49:53
Dmitri Mendaliev, I think I'm saying that right. And this took place I
49:57
believe in Russia, maybe Serbia, and they were essentially trying to breed foxes
50:01
to be very friendly and docile, like sort of dog companions. Okay,
50:06
it's kind of a brutal story. It maybe is worth unpacking as an episode
50:09
or maybe a mini or something. And so the game I think shies away
50:15
from the more brutal aspects of the actual story. But the game is just
50:20
it's really really smart, Like it looks complex and then you get into it
50:23
and it's like, oh that's pretty straightforward, like I get it right,
50:27
and it's one that it does. It kind of builds on itself. So
50:30
as the game goes, they just kind of like you get better and better
50:35
turns every time, which feels kind of good. So it's like at first
50:37
you can't do very much, but then as you get better and better,
50:42
things like you can do more on your term, almost like an RPG in
50:45
that way, like as you level up. I guess, yeah, anyway,
50:50
this is the Fox Experiment. People who are really in the board game
50:53
hobby may recognize. The designer's name is Elizabeth Hargrave, who also designed Wingspan.
50:59
The Fox Experiment is published by Pandosaurus Games, so different publisher than Wingspan.
51:04
I love that. Yeah, so people, if you're interested in a
51:07
it's sort of heavy on the strategy side, but it's not one of the
51:10
majorly complex games. It's just it's more complex than like like sorry, which
51:15
is pretty easy to do. Right. Anyway, there's the Fox Experiment Elizabeth
51:21
Hargrave by Pandasaurus Games. That's so fun. I love it. Okay,
51:24
we still did it under an hour. Yay. If you would like to
51:28
tell us about the mind body problem, something that we got right, a
51:30
board game or a book that you are interested in and would like to share
51:34
with people, you can write to us directly. Email us at info at
51:37
wwdwwdpodcast dot com. We'll reach out to us on the various social media platforms.
51:43
Is there anything else that you'd like to add or that I forgot before
51:45
we set off today, Shane, No, I think that covers it.
51:47
Mind your body, mind your body, keep those minds in your body.
51:52
I think that's it. So this is Abraham and this is Shane. We're
51:54
out. So yeah, you've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
51:59
You can learn where about this and other episodes by going to ww D
52:02
WWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day