Mind-body debate is central to the philosophy of consciousness. Two of the most significant philosophers to specialize in the analysis of the mind-body relationship are Nicolas Malebranche, a French Cartesian dualist, and Gottfried Liebniz, a German philosopher of mind who consciously breaks from a dualistic metaphysic. These two philosophers present two divergent, yet strangely harmonious views of the mind-body interaction and the philosophical problems it creates. Insofar as the mind-body

Descartes -- Discourse on the Method Rene Descartes was firmly rooted in the idea that all questions could be answered through mathematical or scientific means. His approach to constructing solutions, verifying knowledge, or establishing truths was methodical and based in the principles that had been established by others in relevant disciplines and were believed at the time to be reliable. He was the consummate introvert, believing that answers existed within and

In addition, he makes several considerations about the machines which have the capacity to learn. He suggests that technological improvements and a learning process associated with rewards and punishments can contribute to having machines learn. Under these circumstances, he states, we would be only a step away from having machines with the capacity of autonomous thinking. John Searle is also interested in the argument. Unlike Turing, he concludes that regardless

Philosophy and Psychology of the Mind and Body Throughout human history, philosophers, doctors, and most recently, psychologists, have attempted to understand the relationship between the mind and body and how it results in human beings' awareness and perception of reality. At least since the golden age of Greek philosophy, thinkers have been aware of an ostensible distinction between the mind and body, a distinction that nonetheless allows for some intermingling such

Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THE MIND-BRAIN The Dualism Argument Pure Materialist Viewpoint Theories Visual Stimuli vs. Speech stimuli Descartes Point-of-View Neurons and Synapses Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship In cognitive (neuro) science all through the last few decades, as in philosophy in the last 100 years, the issue of the mind-body (or mind-brain) occurrences is still open to discussion. Illogically, ever since Descartes nobody has suggested a workable alternate view of this problem.

Aquinas and Descartes The discourse on the relationship between mind and matter and between human being and nature has been a pervasive theme throughout the history of Western philosophy. The philosophical views of Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes represent diametrically opposed aspects of this problem. From Aristotle, Aquinas derived the concept of matter, not as an inert subject but having the potential to attain form. Aquinas does recognize the distinction between form