The Mind Body ProblemThe philosophy of the mind body problem originated with Rene Descartes. This problem accounts of how the mind or mental processors - our thoughts which seems like nothing more than nothingness - can control something so solid and real like the body. And so the mind body problem asks if these two things, although totally unrelated can effect each other in any way. To some the thought that these two could be related and effect each other seems totally oblivious. Descartes makes two major claims about the nature of the mind and the body that seem completely contradictory. First, he tells us over-and-over again that the mind and the body are ontologically distinct (in others words, they are two radically different substances). Secondly, he tells us that the mind is commingled with the body and that the commingling takes place via one point in the brain. The question must ask and the issue of “The mind-body problem” is, if the brain is (like all other bodies) matter or extended in space, “where” in the brain does the mind, a non-physical, non-extended, spiritual substance, connect with the body? Is that connection spot not itself a part of the body? If it is then isn’t the mind a part of the body insofar as it is extended in space and physical? If, as Descartes says, it is essential to the mind that it be non-physical then it cannot be “connected” to a physical thing. How is it possible that two different kinds of substances can interact via one of the kinds of substances? If the substances are radically distinct, then one cannot be a part of another. In short, this is the mind-body problem. In one way or another some of the views proposed by AI researchers state that 'the mind can not be created, it is something naturally gifted to us'. If this is true it could be possible that no true form of AI can be created. If the mind is nothingness and we can not create something resembling the mind the furtherest AI research will reach is a program with many & IF.....THEN.....ELSE & statements. The mind and body can be related to rain and a rainbow. For one to exist the other has to be there. An able body with all limbs in working order wants a drink, his mind tells him to move his legs to the refrigerator. On the other hand a person with no legs wants a glass of water? His mind does not tell him to move his legs, because he has none, his mind will tell him to move his wheel chair to the refrigerator or to ask a person for help. From this example we can see that the part of the mind that tells us to move our legs has been lost, lost when the legs were lost, or perhaps was never there. I also believe if a machine has a degree of AI and a full replica of a human body then it will to possess a mind. |