>>13833470>It is not physically tangible but it is clearly a very real experience>We can see there is a relation between the brain and consciousness but that doesn't mean causation.Okay, I've given some heavy thought to this, but I can't guarantee I can actually answer your initial question or any questions about the mind.
So, here's the thing with dualism vs physicalism, both face one central issue: how does the mind connect to the body?
The origin of the mind is a very strange thing indeed, and one I cant really get into as this will probably be long, even with cursory statements. As previously mentioned, philosophers like Descartes managed to answer this by using God as the main source of all souls. Yet this is also a flaw, as we cannot entirely say who or what created God and how he gained the ability to create souls. I don't think this is something we can truly answer, because the mind is an absolute constant in our lives.
Your cells constantly die and are replaced, iirc it takes 7 years for all the cells in your body at that moment to be completely replaced by new cells. How, then, is the mind impacted by this? Dualism would answer this by saying that, since the mind is separate from the body (using the brain as a means to enact control and grant us qualia), it is completely unaffected by the body's constant degradation and restoration. This is how you're able to shape yourself over time using both good and bad experiences, as the mind is able to store your current qualia for future use.
Physicalists might then counter this by saying that mental states are just that: physical states in the brain. Those physical states are copied atom by atom over time, and the more activity your brain has, the more the mind is impacted and your personality shaped.
