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This essay will discuss the question, as the title suggests, how we, as intelligent,

conscious beings got here. With this it will consider the most plausible explanation for

this.

Firstly, it must be considered what is meant by we. By doing this we must look at a

common sense of the world and our existence. We look at this by what exists; the

universe, the solar system and the planet we live on, the earth. We live on the

biosphere on the earth, as humans shared with other living creatures.

It could be argued the human beings (we) are not just part of the other animals sharing

the earth, we have a conscious mentality, what we see in the world around us, we have

feeling about certain subjects. Whether this is a feeling of pain, being optimistic or sad,

we consciously know we are feeling this. From our subjective experiences we know

we have a mind. Within this being with a conscious mind, we can explore how as a

conscious, intelligent human being what mind may mean.

With this established view that we are conscious, we are aware and use this to reason

that we have a mind, we will look at aspects of reason of what the mind could be

interpreted as. The first option could be that mind is our brain, the physical matter inside

the head, giving us perception and feelings. This option could be viewed as physicalism

(Jaegwon, K. (Nd).The second option could describe the mind as something more than

purely physical substance. The mind may be non physical, a more spiritual concept and

separate from the body, that both mind and body are separate substances (Warburton

2004). This view can be described as Substance Dualism.(Descartes R, 1641) This

argument was described by Descartes as; that the body and mind are separate, the

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mind is private; no body knows what is in our mind but us. Physical experiences can be

shared, but not mental ones, thus, the mind must be something more. Further to this

argument, the mind described as a non physical substance may be described in a

spiritual way as the soul; Descartes described this as a Cartesian circle. .(Descartes R,

1641). A third option can be described as immaterialism; where the argument is put

forward that everything we see is just in the mind (Berkeley G, 1710).

We will now look at the question of what makes us intelligent conscious beings, in the

context of the physicalist approach to this question. In regards to the mind, if a person

feels pain, the mental state recognises the pain experience and the body feels the pain.

A physicalist answer to this would be this is the mind (or brain) state feeling the pain

through biological functions within the brain, causing a reaction in which pain is felt. This

would be a state of the brain. Whether pain, joy, sadness, this would all be theorised by

a physicalist as a mind/ brain state, everything that is happening is just in the mind.

If it can be argued that there is just the physical domain, we must look at supporting

arguments for this premise. As regards to a track record of results in physical sciences,

i.e, neuroscience, it has been established by empirical research that there is a

correlation between areas of the brain being stimulated and effects on the body, that is

there is an established cause and effect between the brain and the body. An

Electroencephalograph (EEG) detects electrical activity in the brain and can distinguish

between states of sleep and activity. Also; There are no pain receptors on thesurface

of the brain, and some humans undergoing brain surgery have volunteered to have their

exposed brain stimulated with electrodes during surgery. When not under general

anesthesia, they can even report their sensations to the experimenter. (The Human

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Central Nervous System, (Nd). The brain/mind and the body may not be the same, but

there is an effect of one to the other.

Another argument supporting physicalism could be one of simplicity. This states if a

theory can be explained in simple explanation rather than in a more complex line of

reasoning, then the simpler explanation is more than likely correct. This is explained by

the 14th Century friar, William of Ockham, who proposed; "Entities should not bemultiplied unnecessarily. Or"The simplest explanation for some phenomenon ismorelikely to be accurate than more complicated explanations." This is known as Occams

Razor, (Gibbs, P 1996)

The closure argument for physicslism proposes that everything physical in the world,

has a physical explanation, that is all events have purely physical causes and effects.

This opposes the substance dualism view of the mind, as a physicalist would argue if

the mind/brain is not physical there could be no interaction between body and mind. The

mind is a closed state of the physical.

Another proposition to the argument that as intelligent conscious human beings with a

mind is that the mind is separate to the physical entity. As cited earlier, Descartes

refered to this as Substance Dualism, or Cartisian dualism. This supposes that the mind

or soul is immaterial, but housed in a material body. That the mind cannot be explained

in purely physical terms, hence the mind is something spirtual and the body is physical.

Descartes suggested that it would be possible to imagine a mind to exist without a

body, therefore it is conceivable that the mind is a different entity to the

body.(DescartesR 1641)

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As regards to the question of we as conscious human beings, the Dualist would

support the theory that consciousness cannot be explained in the physical terms of

brain chemistry and other studies.( Arguments for Dualism, Nd). Another premise of

Dualism is that it logically possible, as the mind and body are seperate, for the mind to

survive the destruction of the body, if we are purely physical being,this would be

impossible. If as Physicalism purports, the minds thoughts have a physical property or

mass, to imagine in ones mind an object, this does not give that object a physical

representation. This Dualist position maintains that a persons mind and consciousness

are immaterial, non physical and described as the soul.(Kagan,P,2008 ).