ILN EP 65: The Mind-Body Problem

Pat was feeling well mental, innit? So Ben decides to spill the tea about perhaps the most intractable problem in the history of philosophy: The Mind-Body Problem. This issue has been a titanic pain in the ass since Descartes very Frenchly waded into it back in the 1600's. Basically, it boils down to this: We clearly experience an inner, subjective dimension of life consisting in thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, etc, that also seems to be autonomous from the external, physical world we encounter. Some would say that this mental aspect of our experience can control parts of the external, physical world, specifically through our bodies. But how do we square this with our current scientific understanding of the world, which is purely materialistic and doesn't need The Mind to explain our behavior. Anyway, in 400+ years, philosophers haven't really made any significant progress on this, so of course Pat is bewildered and furious. Listen, Learn and Subscribe!