Essay On Cartesian Dualism

As regards materialism, the downside of this doctrine is that when materialists attempt to reduce the mental realm to the physical by saying that mental experiences are brain processes, they deny the existence of consciousness, sometimes called ‘qualia’, which is nevertheless a subjective aspect of mental experiences. According to Dualism, having different properties is not the only difference between Mental and Physical realms, a third difference between the two as mentioned earlier is qualitative. Mental happenings have subjective qualities such as what it feels like, looks like or sounds like. Descartes' view claims that material properties could never produce something as perplexing as consciousness or awareness, because such qualities

Scientifically, it has been established that lightning is an electrical discharge. Science was able to show that a phenomenon, which previously seemed to defy physical description can now be understood within the framework of the law of physics. According to the Identity Theory, the scientific discovery that lightning is the same thing as an electrical discharge is an a posteriori truth that could be found only by observation and experiment. Unlike Cartesian Dualism, in this theory, there is the advantage of testability. For instance, the brain can be seen and examined through scientific/medical experiment; it is possible to make one experience certain mental states and see which part of their brain lights up. Hence, the strength of Identity Theory rests in its testability. So far, we have seen that the Identity Theory has argued for its solution to the mind/body problem by describing progress that science has made; it also predicts that science is yet to reveal what exactly is this physical sate which is identical with those of