Reference no: EM132558563
Descartes theory that the Mind and the Body are distinct and separate 'substances'. On his view, there are only two things that exist in the Universe: the mental and the physical, and everything is made up of only one or the other. The 'Mind-Body' Problem is the problem of how these two are supposed to interact (since the mental, or Mind, is a non-spatial thing).
Question 1: What is consciousness? Is the mind the same thing as the brain? If not, what is the mind? What are thoughts? How does consciousness fit into our world of material/physical objects?
Dualism versus Physicalism:
Descartes is known as a Dualist: he believes that two substances exist, Mind and Body (or physical stuff). other thinkers reject this idea, and say there is only one substance or basic 'stuff' in the world, and that is physical, or Body. 'Physicalists', like Smart, believe there is no real 'mental stuff' in the universe: everything is really only just ordinary physical stuff like bodies, atoms, particles and mass. What do you think?