Problem of mental causation

Mental causation is a tricky problem because it's hard to explain exactly how a mental state, like a thought or emotion, can affect something physical, like our body or the things around us. To understand mental causation, imagine that you are standing in a room full of people. Everyone in the room can feel their own thoughts and emotions, and they can see how their thoughts affect their own bodies. But, even though you can feel and see how your own thoughts have an effect on you, it's hard to see how those same thoughts can have an effect on other people in the room. This is the problem of mental causation; it's hard to understand how something mental, like a thought or emotion, can have an effect on something physical, like the bodies and behavior of other people in the room.