My thoughts regarding the mind-body problem

The soul-body problem raises the question whether and if so, in what way the mind is linked to the body. There is a plethora of ways to look at the mind-body problem, but very few of them seem to be based on a scientific basis. The theory I fell for was physicalism because it seems to be well rooted in science.

It seems to me that there now are research results that clearly show that the soul is physical; it is for example possible to see which part of the brain that is activated during different types of physical activities. And there are also clear evidence that physical damage to the brain can lead to personality- and behavioural disorders. That is to say we are getting more and more evidence that there is a real link between the mind and the physical body. In addition, there are already products on the market that use this physical link between mind and body to changes our emotional state and behaviour by changing the chemical balance in the brain, for example is medicines (which alter neurotransmitters), drugs and alcohol. There is also a significant progress in the development of computer system that mimic the human thinking, artificial intelligence, which to me is yet another sign that our thinking is made up of logical processes. I am convinced that the more answers research gives us all the more intelligent computer systems will become even if I believe that it will take a very long time before they fully emulates the human thinking.

Let us suppose the mind is something that can’t be explained with science, how come there are chemical and electrical reactions in the brain? Is it the case that when we reach a certain level of research the laws of science simply stops and something "divine" or supernatural begins? No, I think it's a lot more likely that the connections between body, brain and mind all will be explained with physical laws. However, I can imagine that it will take centuries before we solve the mystery completely.

Some justifies dualism with the argument that the mind and the body are two totally different things, that our feelings and thoughts are so far from nerve cells and chemical reactions that the two concepts cannot exist in the same conceptual world. I do not agree with that argument, and I think we often refers to the mind and the body as two completely different things today is because we lack the knowledge needed to logically link them together. When we don’t have enough knowledge of something we tend to romanticise and mystify, for example it was thought in the Roman Empire in the third century that the human soul was created by fragments from the god Zeus.

It is perhaps so that we realise that we in the future will be able to explain our mind and our thoughts in a scientific way, but that we would like to appear complex creatures that cannot be reduced down to electronic charges, chemical reactions and scientific formulas? We can draw a parallel to when Darwin published his theories, many opposed his theories because they reduced people to animals, in the same way, perhaps the knowledge that our soul is a biological machine meet resistance........