Abstract
Cartesian dualism projected the view of human mind as independent of the body, having its own laws, free from causality of physical nature, and a distinct, un-extended thinking substance ‘res cogitans’. Later philosophers projected the idea of Mind-Brain identity thesis on the grounds that minds cannot exist without a brain. It was less a question of mind’s existence and more a question of the occurrence of mental events that lead philosophers to the idea of a causal relation between the mental events and the physical events in the brain. Many agree that thoughts are the causal outcome of what takes place inside the brain, causally connected with the external physical environment. Still, it remained an unsettled matter as to how freedom of mind and the causal determination of brain events are related. Some materialistic monist philosophers tried to defend freedom of the mind on the grounds that the language of the mind cannot be reduced to the physical language of physical sciences. Therefore, they inferred that mind is free despite being causally determined by the brain processes; in so far as the mental events like wishes, desires, intentions, willing, decisions, choices, and thoughts cannot be described in physical language. There is a kind of anomaly about the mental which is irreducible to the laws of nature. Although the mental events are caused by the physical events yet they are irreducible to the form of physical events, and there are no laws that could be formulated to describe the mental in terms of the physical. Thus, the view emerged that mind means a set of language referring to a person’s mental life that is physically caused yet free from causal descriptions, as it cannot be subsumed under any physical laws of nature. However, the mind-brain identity theorists have overlooked the aspect of consciousness, particularly selfconsciousness. The fact that we are not only conscious but we are also self-conscious makes determinism of mind impossible. Being conscious of one’s actions makes a difference to the causal outcome of actions such that it is impossible to predict what one may do consciously. And this fact does not fit well in the mind-brain identity thesis that projects the idea of a causal determination of all mental and physical events.
Dr.Zahoor H. Baber, . (2013) Consciousness of Freedom and Mind-Brain identity , The Dialogue, Volume 8, Issue 1.
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