The problem of other minds: what it is and what theories address it

The mind is very mysterious, so much so that sometimes we don't even understand how our own works. But as much as we can understand what are the reasons that make us think about something, there is no doubt that the only ones who have access to our minds are ourselves.

We cannot enter the minds of others directly, but we can infer what is going through the heads of others, as we can well demonstrate with the theory of mind... or not?

Do others really have minds? How can we empirically prove that other people have mental states? These and many more are the questions that have led to a curious and intricate philosophical issue: the problem of other minds.

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What is the problem of other minds?

One of the most studied topics in epistemology, which is the branch of philosophy focused on knowledge, is the famous problem of other minds. This problem refers to the difficulty to justify our belief that other people have minds as is our case

. We infer that others have mental states, that there must be something behind their behavior, and that It cannot be that the rest of the people who roam the world are mere automatons in human form.

Although the problem is spoken of in the singular, it can be divided into two problems: the epistemological problem and the conceptual problem of other minds. The epistemological refers to the way in which we can justify our belief that others have mental states, while the conceptual refers to It refers to how we can make a concept of another person's mental state, that is, what we base ourselves on to imagine what the mental processes of others are like. the rest.

The main defining characteristic of the problem of other minds is that it is a problem of justification of intersubjectivity, that is, demonstrate that everyone has their own mind, a totally subjective aspect and that cannot be observed objectively or scientifically from the outside, apparently. We can only believe that others have minds based on our own experience, since it is the only subjectivity to which we have access. Only we know our mind, and it is only our mind that we can know firsthand..

But despite the fact that the only mind we are going to know is our own, we can "understand" how the others work. The idea of ​​believing that others have minds arises from an intuition regarding the mental life of other people, confident that those others human beings who are similar to us have to feel the same as us, like emotions, pains, thoughts, beliefs, desires... But no matter how much we see similarities between them and us or we believe we understand how their minds work, this does not rationally demonstrate that they do indeed have states mental.

Far from giving up or considering that only we have a mind, human beings trust that others do. Despite not having the ability to directly access the minds of others, this does not take away our belief that other minds exist and that every person we see walking down the street has their own own. We cannot justify it, we probably never can, but we believe it, probably because, among other reasons, we are terrified of being alone in this world..

A philosophical problem with many possible solutions

As one might suppose, the problem of other minds has been widely debated in the history of philosophy. No philosopher can resist asking whether others have mental states, since this problem is so unlikely may it be solved one day which well serves as endless entertainment to the most thoughtful thinkers who have plenty of time free.

For centuries and centuries, attempts have been made to "prove" that others have minds, using all possible intellectual efforts to develop a theory that justifies that belief. None has been convincing enough since how can it be empirically justified that others have minds based on their own belief, ours? Three have been the ones that have obtained the most consensus.

1. Other minds as theoretical entities

This gives strength to the justification that other minds exist based on the idea that states mental structures that make up the mind are the best explanation to explain the behavior of the other people. We infer that the thoughts of others are the cause behind their behavior, even though this inference is made solely and exclusively with external and indirect evidence.

2. criteria and other minds

This criterion consists of saying that the relationship between behavior and thought is of a conceptual nature but not a strict link or an infallible correlation. That is to say, the behavior does not show yes or yes that behind a certain behavior there is a mental state or a mind itself. Nevertheless, this approach to behavior plays the role of criteria for the presence of mental states, serving as an indicator that something must be behind it.

3. The argument by analogy

This solution is basically based on how we are and extrapolate it to others, being the most accepted of the three proposed solutions. Although the possibility that others are mindless automatons might be true, there are enough reasons to believe so. contrary and that others, having an appearance similar to ours, have to have a thought also similar to ours. our.

Since we do not have direct access to the experiences of others, we can only have knowledge of them indirectly. taking advantage of his behavior. Their behaviors serve as clues that allow us to understand what would happen in the minds of others. For this we resort to the logical resource of analogy, taking our own case as a case.

From our own case we realize that our mind and body are in constant relationship, seeing stable correlations between thoughts and behaviors. For example, if we are nervous it is normal for our hands to shake, we sweat or even stutter and when we are sad, we cry, our faces are red and our voices break. Seeing these body-mind relationships, if we see that other people's bodies behave the same way, we assume that the mental processes behind them are the same..

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Criticism of the argument by analogy

The only mind that we can justify its existence is ours, as René Descartes already thought when he said “cogito, ergo sum”. For this reason, it is considered that the argument by analogy does not provide enough confidence to justify the belief in other minds, responding to it with various criticisms. One of them is that, as an induction, it is too weak to rely only on a single case: our own experience. As much as we trust the correlations we establish between our mind and our behavior, we are talking about our personal experience.

Another criticism is the one that affirms that the relationship that the argument postulates between mental states and behavior is too weak because it is contingent, without providing the assurance that the behaviors are unequivocal signs of a mental state concrete. It makes sense to think that, at some point, a certain behavior could be related to a specific state of mind, but in the future it might not be so.. The same thought can imply a different behavior both in ourselves and in others.

The third criticism is that we cannot conceive of another's experience and, therefore, we cannot know it. It is true that we can imagine what is going through a person's head after doing something but, in reality, we are simulating how we would behave, based only on our way of acting and without knowing how others really do it the rest. That is, we cannot understand another person's mental state because the experience we have is based on our mental states, and these cannot be extrapolated to others.

Bibliographic references:

• Robles-Chamorro, R. (2014) Philosophy and science: the problem of other minds and mirror neurons. Philosophical Observations Magazine, No. 18 ISSN 0718-3712.
• Avramides, A. (2001) Other Minds, (The Problems of Philosophy), London: Routledge.
• yesterday, a. J., 1953 [1954], “One's Knowledge of Other Minds”, Theoria, 19(1–2): 1–20. Reprinted in Philosophical Essays, London: MacMillan, St Martin's Press: 191–215. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-2567.1953.tb01034.x