The Mind–Body Problem

It is not far from the truth to say that The Mind–Body Problem is the ­problem of understanding the relationship between the mind and the body. But this description is misleading in two different ways. First, we should be aware that philosophers are not that interested in the relationship between the mind and the body, at least not the entire body. For example, there are lots of parts of the body (e.g., the appendix) that don't seem to bear any interesting relationship to our minds. Philosophers tend to focus on the relationship between the mind and the brain, the part of the body that is the (proximate) basis for what goes on in the mind. Second, it's not just mental and neurophysiological objects, entities like the mind and the brain, that are important. For example, there are other mental entities: mental states (e.g., John believing now that it's time for lunch), mental events (e.g., John's present pang of hunger), mental processes (e.g., John's current reflection on how best to avoid further pangs), and so forth. There are also other bodily things: brain states (e.g., the C-fibers of John's brain now firing), brain events (e.g., a signal from another part of John's central nervous system to his brain), brain processes (e.g., those processes in John's brain stem currently regulating his heartbeat), and so forth.