Mind and Body
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What is human consciousness? How is this central feature of our existence related to the natural functions of our physical bodies? Which traditional resolution of the mind-body problem is most nearly correct?
These are grand, abstract metaphysical questions, but we have a ringside seat for observing their application to our own experience. This is a great chance to follow Socrates's advice about knowing ourselves. Clarify, refine, and defend our own understanding of human nature.
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Solution Summary
The expert determines what human consciousness are. How the central features of our existence related to the natural functions of our physical bodies are determined.
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OK. I gave you some ideas here. I used the work of Nikolai Berdyaev, an important existentialist who spoke of nothing else but this very question. He has lots of online publications in all languages: http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/indices/berd_iz.html
You always need to have a source when you give your own opinion: opinions need to be substantiated by a system, and not be the result of mere chance thought. You must cite a major school in philosophy (either positively or negatively) when constructing an opinion.
What is human consciousness? How is this central feature of our existence related to the natural functions of our physical bodies? Which traditional resolution of the mind-body problem is most nearly correct?
These are grand, abstract metaphysical questions, but we have a ringside seat for observing their application to our own experience. This is a great chance to follow Socrates's advice about knowing ourselves.
clarify, refine, and defend our own understanding of human nature.
In reading various philosophers of modernity, I came across one that wrote more convincingly than many others. His solution to the problem of human nature and its relation to matter is significant and convincing. Nikolai Berdyaev was an early 20th century leader in the school of Existentialism. Being an exile from the USSR, his concern was with the structure of human freedom, something expressly denied by Marxist materialism in general and in Soviet philosophy, in particular.
As is normal for existentialists, Berdyaev begins all philosophical analysis with the concept of human freedom. It is not an exaggeration to claim that he associates human freedom with the very structure of consciousness in the sense that they imply each other. Berdyaev's arguments are compelling and fairly easy to read relative to other ...
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