Physicalism

In philosophy (metaphysics), physicalism is the position that everything is physical, that there is nothing over and above the physical, and that everything supervenes on the physical. It stands in direct opposition to idealism, which asserts that reality arises from the mind. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a single-substance account of the nature of reality, in contrast to "two-substance" (mind–body dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) views. Physicalism is closely related to naturalism, though important distinctions exist between them.

thought experiment in philosophy

the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist

in the philosophy of mind, a physicalist theory asserting that mental events can be grouped into types, and can then be correlated with types of physical events in the brain

thumb|right|The upper levels on this chart can be considered to supervene on the lower levels.

bodily components, such as electrical signals, correlating to consciousness and thinking

inability to describe conscious experiences in soley physical or structural terms

American philosopher

philosophical position on the mind-body problem

an approach to the mind–body problem proposed by John Searle, that mental phenomena are higher-level features of the brain caused by neurobiological processes