Talk:Mind-body problem

message: "which Platonic dualism was a strong (though not uncontested) element, but it also builds on 2nd Temple Judaism, in which there was little or no notion of a soul seperable from the body. While an immaterial soul that goes to heaven or hell has been a persistent variant on Christian orthodoxy, the mainline teaching is of the Resurrection of the Body - that God will create new bodies for those who are saved at the end of time. By contrast, the stark dualism of the Gnostics who saw the body as evil and wished to ascend into a purely spiritual realm was condemned as heresy. This is a complex and controversial area, but the entry as it stands is amusingly inaccurate. (As well as ambiguous - it should read "Christian orthodoxy", since it is intended to refer to Christianity as a whole, not just the eastern Church.) -- DukeAldhein 15:18, 22 Jan 2006 (GMT)
: Don't be amused.  :)  Be bold! i.e. Be inspired to help fix.      My reasoning on the theology section when something like this:  
#  Everyone's always telling me how much Christian Science and Gnosticism is idealism.   I should mention that.
#  ooh!  Occasionalism is a religion form of parallelism.  I should probably mention that.
#  Well.. it doesn't make much sense to explain what these heretical sects of christianity believe without talking about what mainstream christianity says.   
#  Umm.  My catholic catechism and the informal versions of christainty i've heard sound exactly like Cartesian Dualism to me.  I'll put that. 
The ressurection of the body stuff certainly would have a place here.  Docetism perhaps could use a mention too. -Alecmconroy 18:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think it's better to start with the more recent theory, then delve back into (or refer to) the past as necessary. Clear sectioning and a degree of modularity would allow the reader to follow the piece in the order they prefer. Mr. Jones 03:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: BTW, who has suggested that the world is composed of mind? I don't think anyone has ever seriously suggested that. Mr. Jones 17:49, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: George Berkeley's Subjective idealism seems to be precisely this view. --mporch 11:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Theology Section

message: The discussion is introduced in terms of the "human body and its mind".  However, the mind-body problem has been discussed throughout antiquity in slightly different terms by metaphysicians (in the philosophical rather than 'supernatural' sense), viz. as a question of the fundamental nature of reality : is reality composed of mind(s) or matter?  The article's presentation begins from the relatively recent perspective of the philosophy of mind by focusing on the nature of human consciousness and things like neurons.  However, this article goes on to generalize the discussion ("What is the basic relationship between the mental and the physical?")  I suppose this critique is mainly one of structure and order.  I am inclined to a more historically ordered presentation, although this may not be the best way to describe the topic in contemporary terms.  This re-structuring would entail a major edit.
68.7.60.40 07:32, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think it's better to start with the more recent theory, then delve back into (or refer to) the past as necessary. Clear sectioning and a degree of modularity would allow the reader to follow the piece in the order they prefer. Mr. Jones 03:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: BTW, who has suggested that the world is composed of mind? I don't think anyone has ever seriously suggested that. Mr. Jones 17:49, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: George Berkeley's Subjective idealism seems to be precisely this view. --mporch 11:17, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the article be ordered historically? 

message: William James makes a very important point in one of his books on the subject - but I cannot remember which one.  Can anyone point me to it?  Also, has anyone else made similar points?
Anyway, the point he made was this:
Opponents of dualism ask, "How exactly does the mind substance interact with the physical substance?"   William James replies, "How exactly does one physical substance interact with another physical substance?"  The answer, according to James, as I understand him, is "It just does".   If a physical substance can act on another physical substance, why can't a mental substance act on a physical substance?  
One might then also ask...if mental and physical substances do the same things by the same "Nike" means...how are we to assert that they are distinct?  We are full circle. 69.29.160.166 23:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  William James and the Mind-Body Problem 

message: If we think it prudent enough to break down a proveable science, such as mathematics, so often to a cartesian plane; why wouldn't it be just as logical to think cartesian dualism is the best way to explain what actually happens?Jebus96ae 13:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cartesian Dualism

message: This has a few additions (by other editors and myself) beyond what Larry wrote, of course. Please wikify this and make changes and suggestions as to how it should be structured. I do quite like the flow of it. I hope we can regain that in newer versions. Mr. Jones 03:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: MrJones, this is amazing work. Great job. With this, we should be able to go through each point and write a new version that replaces Larry's Text. It looks like we might have three of us to work on this project -- I'll start this weekend.  —  Adam Conover † 03:42, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC) (P.S.: I moved this thread to the bottom of the page for readability's sake. Hope you don't mind.)
No worries. There're a fair few more topics to add, like supervenience physicalism, and the topics near the bottom need working into the main structure. I'm not sure the time's right to start writing, but you might like to have a go anyway for practice. I don't know how you work in that respect :-)  I am going to do some reading and return to this in a week's time.  I will monitor the page as I can in the mean time. Mr. Jones 18:03, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  An outline of Larry Sanger's article 

message: This article need to integrated with the general artcile on philosophy of mind. I don't want to hear any objections to this idea, both of them are comltely unacceptable and there is only one corresponding article in the German FA version called "Philosophy of Mind". As that article points out (based on what I could glean from my extremely pathetic knowledge of German), the central question of philolophuy of mind IS the mind-body problem. They are almost synonymous, I would dare say. I know there are other issues, but the German artcile does an outstanding job of covering them as offshoots of the central problem of M/B problem. So the only question is how to integrate and, notwithstanding what I said above, I would like to know how do others feel about this suggestion of course.--Lacatosias 11:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article should be merged