a novel approach to the mind-body problem

when Descarte said "I think therefore I am", he highlighted a problem of causality between mind-substance,which is not spacially extended, and material substance, which is. This question remains as of yet unsolved.

it seems to me that in order to solve this question, one must do to philosophy in general what Newton did to math; the way mind and body interact is perhaps similar in logical structure to how an integral and a derivative relate to a particular function. In this case, the universe as a whole may be thought of as a function, with the mind being an integral of the function, and the material component of existence as the derivative

it's just a weird thought I had during a quiz in philosophy class.

 

since you've gone universal
i think its ok to assume universal mind and have a go at exploring the mind-body problem .

mind is non'spatial . really ? this assumption i would razor . it is
a problem unto universal .

is the following a problem ?

universal is spatial , and space may be defined as
as far as you can see
referenced to mind and body ,
mind or body .

?... is it possible to translate into words your personal feeling experience of the universal mind . this might be easier than relating physically to an alien you have never sat upon . look out !

 

from a cartesian point of view, the mind is not spacially extended in the sense that you can't point somewhere and say "there goes a thought!" really, though, the mind-body problem only comes into being in a dualist system; if you're a behaviorist, you would say "look at those neurotransmitters. THATs where the thought is," and, as the mind is reduced into physical terms, there is no problem of causality. however, every system has a certain set of problems.

oh, and also, if we are assuming a universal mind, does this thought-stuff actually have to be located? is it in the physical?

oh well. every theory is just a shoddy abstract reproduction of what is.

p.s., every function has only one derivative, but an infinite number of possible integrals.

 

Descartes also brought up the issue of the great Deceiver, and that is a highly relevant point. We can indeed point to neurotransmitters and say, "There's a piece of the mind right there!" but we cannot know that it is really that way.

To put it another way: if we are in something like The Matrix, and everything we experience is simulated on a computer, then our impressions of what is real are ultimately incorrect because we are being deceived. (And very well, I might add!)

This has ramifications in the mind-body problem mentioned in the original post. If neurotransmitters are a fiction, then so is the body. That is to say, we might only believe we have bodies while the ultimate reality is something entirely different. I'm hardly the first to point this out; consider Plato's shadows on the cave wall.

I cannot imagine any way to resolve this issue. The best I can do is to play the game according to its apparent rules.

Nonetheless, if I'm playing the game I can still note consistencies. For example, I note that behaving or thinking in certain ways makes me unhappy. Does it matter if my body is "real" or not? The direct experience of unhappiness (or, my accurately, my experience of the recollection of the experience) is about as real as I get.

And now I note how convoluted my sentences have become. That's consistent with what my mind does when I attempt to establish control over the universe. I also note that I've always failed at doing that. That has been consistent throughout my life.

 

Isn't this built on an assumption that we are "not already" being deceived? (and very well, ... yes, you may add!)

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Well, of course. Deception can affect every perception.

We can itemize several sources of deception, then ask some questions. (A) Is somebody deliberately misleading us, or (B) are we misleading ourselves to preserve misconceptions, or (C) are we being misled through sheer happenstance, as when our perceptions are culturally biased?

Incidentally, let us not forget that our models of reality can be reasonably accurate but limited. Even models built from pure, cold logic must contend with Godel's Incompleteness and Heisenberg's Uncertainty. So sometimes the "deception" is simply limitation.

 

To the OP:

What is the question that "remains as of yet unsolved"?

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