Mental Content

Philosophy of mind is a popular area of study in contemporary philosophy.  Right now, most philosophers of mind are materialists, meaning that the brain is the same as the mind.  A materialist believes that everything is physical.  Plato and Rene Descartes are two famous dualists who believe that the brain is not the same as the mind.  For a dualist, the brain is completely physical whereas the mind is immaterial.  The primary differences between mind and body are the mind is private and the body is public, the mind is immaterial and the body is material, and mind is non-spatial and the body is extended.  So a materialist responds to the dualist with, 'how does a immaterial thought causally interact with a material object?'  The dualist cannot respond with anything other than, 'it just does.'  So materialism seems to be the way to go in philosophy of mind - the brain is the mind.  The only thing that materialists have yet to show is how the thoughts can be located in the brain, where does one experience another person's thoughts?  In theory, a materialist should be able to demonstrate through neurosensors what a person is thinking, because thoughts are purely physical.  Now, I am probably leaning more towards the materialist way of thinking.  But in a book review, J. B. Stump, a Christian philosopher claimed that the Christian materialist had three questions to answer.  First question, how does an incorporeal God causally interact with a physical universe (Peter Van Inwagen - a Christian materialist - argues that God is material).  Second, how will our physical fleshly bodies be the same as our spiritual bodies, or how can a Christian explain the eschatological resurrection when the parousia occurs (Trenton Merricks - another Christian materialist - anwers this question in The Reason for the Hope Within).   Third, how does one deal with free will.  For myself a compatibilist, also a theological determinist, there does not seem to be any problem with free will.  The only problem I might have is the first objection, an incorporeal God causally interacting with a physical universe.  Yet, due to the divine hiddeness of God this does not seem to be a problem to me.  I would not claim that God is material, but I would not completely reject it either - there could be a type of spirit matter.  In short, I think that it is possible to be a Christian and be a materialist.  For a biblical theology argument of this viewpoint read E. Earle Ellis.