IndexFrulent Arguments about Similar Human BehaviorBehavior is not always a true sign of what someone is thinkingFinal thoughtsMany scientific studies have clearly shown that every human has a brain own, but the theories differ when it comes to the existence of the mind – the immaterial element that allows a person to subjectively experience the world. In “Analogy of Other Minds”, Bertrand Russell sets out to demonstrate that there are minds other than his through introspection and analogy; believes that by looking within oneself and recognizing and understanding one's own mind, it is possible to observe the behaviors of others and confidently conclude that they have the same thoughts and feelings as us, confirming the idea that every individual has a mind. He claims that a thought, denoted as A, will cause a behavior in him, denoted as B. He assumes that since A causes B, if this behavior can be observed in other people, they too have a mind. However, in this essay, I will argue that Russell's analogy argument to convince that different minds exist is lacking, because having truly only looked at one's own perspective is not enough to generalize about the minds of others and whether they are actually there. . We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Unsuccessful Arguments About Similar Human Behaviors All Russell relies on is the comparison of similar behaviors, which can easily be falsified or influenced by different thought processes; with this approach, you do not have the conscious understanding behind the behaviors of other individuals and therefore lack concrete evidence to draw conclusions about minds other than your own. Russell explains that through arithmetic problems, you can infer that another person also has a mind when they get the same answer as you; however it is known that there are many different ways to arrive at the same answer, especially in mathematics. Russell argues that if we were to present someone with a difficult arithmetic problem, we might infer that he would solve the problem in the same way that we would solve it. He explicitly explains that since "the causal laws governing his behavior have to do with 'thoughts,' it is natural to infer that the same is true of the analogous behavior of his friends" (Russell, 90). However, there are many different ways to arrive at a conclusion; two plus eight gives the same answer as adding five to five. You may see that your friend's conclusion is the same as yours, but that doesn't mean that your friend's thought process is also identical. This concept only becomes clearer when examining more difficult problems. For example, even when it comes to coding inputs in different coding languages, there are different ways to form code fragments and combinations and still arrive at the same output. Therefore, the argument from analogy when it comes to solving problems and obtaining identical answers is not sufficient evidence to support a conclusion regarding the existence of other minds. Later, Russell explains that certain behaviors are explicitly caused by the same thoughts, and seeing other people's behaviors allows you to infer that the other person had the same thoughts as you before behaving in the same way; however, this statement also fails to address the fact that people may behave in ways similar to you for completely different reasons. He believes: “based on self-observation, that only A can cause B; he therefore deduces that there was an A that caused B, thinking that it was not an A thathe could observe. From this he deduces that the bodies of others are associated with minds, which resemble his as much as their bodily behavior resembles his." Behavior is not always a true sign of what someone is thinking. Since we can only experience our own thoughts and behaviors, we have a very limited perspective, which does not allow us to make inferences about the minds of others. He claims that B is only caused by A, but this is often not the case for other people. If you drink water because you are thirsty, someone else may drink water because they need to take a urine test soon or flush toxins from their body. His argument is based solely on looking inward and comparing one's behavior to that of those around us, assuming they think like us. Clearly, people may act as you do for different reasons, so relying on similar actions is not sufficient to make claims about other people's minds. Comparing one's behavior to that of everyone else isn't even necessarily entirely accurate, because behaviors aren't always indicative of what someone is thinking. Russell explains that “an ingenious person could build an automaton that would laugh at his jokes, no matter how often he heard them; but a human being, after having laughed a few times, will yawn, and end up saying 'How I laughed the first time I heard that joke'”. Here Russell distinguishes between human and robot minds because humans react differently to specific stimuli, which he calls “differences in observable behavior.” In this case, however, it assumes that humans only laugh because they find something funny, which is not always true. Someone might laugh at another person's joke and pretend the whole time for their own reasons, such as trying to get into that person's good graces or because they feel uncomfortable in the situation. Humans constantly fake behaviors, clearly seen during theatrical performances, when actors perform certain behaviors not because they actually experience the same emotions as their characters, but because the script demands it. Therefore, not laughing at a joke you've heard multiple times is not the same as an actor who has heard the same joke in rehearsal hundreds of times but still has to laugh when the moment comes. Therefore, Russell's theory of analogous minds does not apply here either, since behavior certainly is not always a true sign of what someone is thinking, making it invalid to use when making inferences about someone else's mind. Russell concludes that his theories may not be fully valid, but they are valid enough to represent the idea that different minds exist; however, because his claims are based on probability, they lack solid evidence and are not very strong. He says that “We cannot be sure that, in our subjective experience, A is the only cause of B. And even if A is the only cause of B in our experience, how can we know that this holds outside of our experience ?”. However, he believes that this is not important because it is enough to conclude that different minds exist. A problem arises here because his whole argument is that by noticing similarities in your behavior with that of the person next to you, you can infer that they have a mind just like you. Yet, near the end, he says that it may not always be true that A causes B, which brings me back to the point that introspection is not sufficient to infer claims about other people and how their minds work. If there is a strong possibility that A does not always cause B, then Russell's reasoning is flawed in its nature. Agreeing on the fact,.