Editing Thought (section)

===Metaphysics===
The [[mind–body problem]] concerns the explanation of the relationship that exists between [[mind]]s, or mental processes, and bodily states or processes.<ref name="Kim1">{{cite book |last=Kim |first=J. |editor=Honderich, Ted |title=Problems in the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford Companion to Philosophy |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hond |url-access=registration |year=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-866132-0 }}<!--Kim, J., "Problems in the Philosophy of Mind". ''[[Oxford Companion to Philosophy]]''. Ted Honderich (ed.) Oxford:Oxford University Press. 1995.--></ref> The main aim of philosophers working in this area is to determine the nature of the mind and mental states/processes, and how—or even if—minds are affected by and can affect the body.

Human perceptual experiences depend on [[stimulation|stimuli]] which arrive at one's various [[sensory system|sensory organs]] from the external world and these stimuli cause changes in one's mental state, ultimately causing one to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Someone's desire for a slice of pizza, for example, will tend to cause that person to move his or her body in a specific manner and in a specific direction to obtain what he or she wants. The question, then, is how it can be possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties. A related problem is to explain how someone's [[propositional attitude]]s (e.g. beliefs and desires) can cause that individual's [[neuron]]s to fire and his muscles to contract in exactly the correct manner. These comprise some of the puzzles that have confronted [[epistemologist]]s and philosophers of mind from at least the time of [[René Descartes]].<ref>''Companion to Metaphysics'', By Jaegwon Kim, [[Gary S. Rosenkrantz]], Ernest Sosa, Contributor Jaegwon Kim, 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-4051-5298-3}}</ref>

The above reflects a classical, functional description of how we work as cognitive, thinking systems. However the apparently irresolvable mind–body problem is said to be overcome, and bypassed, by the [[embodied cognition]] approach, with its roots in the work of [[Heidegger]], [[Jean Piaget|Piaget]], [[Vygotsky]], [[Merleau-Ponty]] and the pragmatist [[John Dewey]].<ref>Varela, Francisco J., Thompson, Evan T., and Rosch, Eleanor. (1992). ''The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. {{ISBN|0-262-72021-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Cowart |first=Monica |year=2004 |title=Embodied Cognition |encyclopedia=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |issn= 2161-0002 |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/embodcog/ |access-date= 27 February 2012}}</ref>

This approach states that the classical approach of separating the mind and analysing its processes is misguided: instead, we should see that the mind, actions of an embodied agent, and the environment it perceives and envisions, are all parts of a whole which determine each other. Therefore, functional analysis of the mind alone will always leave us with the mind–body problem which cannot be solved.<ref>{{cite web |author=Di Paolo, Ezequiel|title= Shallow and Deep Embodiment|publisher= University of Sussex|date= 2009 |format=Video, duration: 1:11:38 |url=https://cast.switch.ch/vod/clips/74nrkbwys |access-date=27 February 2012}}</ref>