Monday, October 17, 2011  What is the mind-body problem?  To:
Walter F. From: Geoffrey Klempner Subject: What is the mind-body
problem? Date: 22 July 2005 11:55  Dear Walter,  Thank you for
your email of 12 July, with your first essay for the Philosophy
of Mind program, in response to the question, 'What is
philosophy? Illustrate your answer using the example of the
mind-body problem.'  A good question to start with would be,
What is the mind-body problem? why is there a problem concerning
the relation between body and mind?  You remark that dualism is
a 'doctrine that nobody holds but everybody practices'. In
Daniel Dennett's book 'Consciousness Explained' there is a nice
cartoon of a professor at a blackboard writing a very long
equation, which comes to an abrupt end. 'Then a miracle occurs.'
The philosophical joke is that not a few researchers working in
the field of neuroscience make the tacit dualist assumption that
somehow, when enough machinery gets going, mind just 'appears'.
They assume the very thin