Dualism

Dualism, as defined in the philosophy of mind, and as contrasted with monism, is the philosophical view that there are two [dual] distinct kinds of things that make up a person - usually the material body/brain and the immaterial substance that is the mind. This form of dualism is called substance dualism - for it posits that there are two distinct substances that form the general person. There is another view called property dualism, which states that there is only one kind of substance - a material one - though, with certain interactions and structures, it presents itself with two different properties. The first property is the typical, physical property that makes up the material brain. The second is what is referred to as the mind; however, this position does not hold that the mind is substantially different from the material brain - but more so that the mental properties that are observed (i.e. thinking) are merely emergent properties that arise from natural processes. While property dualism is more scientifically geared due to its admission that the mind is really only a physical substance (just presented differently), dualism as a whole faces a great challenge with every new discovery that reveals how mere chemical processes can alone form thought processes. Apart from this, the dualists must also answer how exactly the mind and brain interact with each other - do mental states cause physical motion, vice versa? Or, as the parallelists believe, do they not have any causal relationship at all - but simply run parallel to each other, and they only seem to be interacting (and only perfectly run parallel to each other) because of some deity, such as God? Of course, there are many more questions in the debate of dualism, and many more perspectives than are presented here - further, the term ‘dualism’ can [and has been] used to describe numerous theories apart from the philosophy of mind that involve two things (e.g. duality of good and evil, etc.), however it is primarily a metaphysical view. Nonetheless, the debate surrounding what the human brain/mind is has been a timeless one.