Brain–mind identities in dualism and materialism: a historical perspective (original) (raw)

Brain and Mind: Toward an Understanding of Dualism

Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience

A post-Newtonian understanding of matter includes immaterial forces; thus, the concept of ‘physical’ has lost what usefulness it previously had and Cartesian dualism has, consequently, ceased to support a divide between the mental and the physical. A contemporary scientific understanding of mind that goes back at least as far as Priestley in the 18th century, not only includes immaterial components but identifies brain parts in which these components correlate with neural activity. What are we left with? The challenge is no longer to figure out how a physical brain interacts with a nonphysical mind, but to try to unify theories of mind and theories of brain that to date do not share a single property. The challenge is enormous, but at least we can be quite clear about what its nature is, as there is no reason to be distracted by the idea of two distinct substances. In the present volume, many historical perspectives on the mind-body problem are discussed. In what follows, we follow major currents of thought regarding the mind-body problem so that it can be seen how we arrived at the modern conception that it makes sense only to talk about theory unification.

The Mind/Brain Identity Theory: A Critical Appraisal

2016

The materialist version of the mind/brain identity theory has met with considerable challenges from philosophers of mind. The author first dispenses with a popular objection to the theory based on the law of indiscernibility of identicals. By means of discussing the vexatious problem of phenomenal qualities, he explores how the debate may be advanced by seeing each dualist and monist ontology through the lens of an evolutionary epistemology. The author suggests that by regarding each ontology as the core of a scientific research programme, each of these logically irrefutable hypotheses can be tested rationally.

The mind and brain in time: implications for modern neuropsychology

Acta Neuropsychologica, 2018

In this paper, I wish to describe the categorical nature of the mind/brain state from its origins in drive to the refinements of human cognition. Categories are concepts with a broader scope. The virtual quality of category members corresponds to the relation of whole and part. A successive individuation of categories is the foundational operation of the mind/brain state. There is a similarity to fractal theory and the mereology of wholes and parts, though categories are not sums or containers, members are virtual and the whole/part specification is qualitative, unlike the self-similar replications of fractal theory. The discussion takes up the problem of causal transmission between the mind and brain and within and across mental states, concluding that an assimilation model has more explanatory power than a strictly causal one, in keeping with the distinction of potential/actual from cause/effect. The idea that mind-brain interaction is causal introduces the possibility of subjecti...

Mind-brain Identity to the rescue of Multiple Realization

To counter the thesis of the identity of Types, Putnam raised the famous argument of the multiple realization of the mental. Having inserted into functionalist thesis, argument is weakened (i) by the reductionism of Kim and Armstrong / Lewis, and (ii) by option of disjunction of properties. To make the relation of realization and multiple realization more coherent, Shoemaker offers an alternative thesis. In a recent article , incorporating Yablo's thesis on determinable properties, he constructs an original account on realized properties that on one side avoids reductionism and on the other gives way to multiple realization. However, as this article aims to show, the use of Yablo's thesis, mainly qualifying relation between the mental and physical as a relation of determinable to determinate, added to the individuation of properties according to their causal profile, somehow reintroduces the Type identity thesis.

A new dualism; the exclusive representational ideals of the mind/brain system

Most of the major problems in philosophy of mind can be solved in one simple scientific stroke based on dualism. Systems in the world, including the mind/brain, are modelled for one of three reasons – explanation, representation, and replication. Since these are models applied to the same object, they have intersections; but because they are models with different uses, and therefore different underlying assumptions, they cannot be considered to be equivalent. A new dualism based on representational ideals would resolve the problems of epiphenomenal or quantum consciousness, the hard problem, black box modules, the location of free will and qualia, and allow us to be more philosophically honest and rigorous in our study of the nature of minds, whether in philosophy, artificial intelligence, or machine learning.

3Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship (1).docx

Grand Canyon University, 2022

Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship This paper investigates the mental representation of the mind-brain relationship from the perspectives of psychoanalytic purpose, relations theory, and cognitive developmental psychology, as well as the congruence between these formulations and research and theory in cognitive science or social cognition. In the long-term, patient treatment of severely disturbed adolescents and young adults, the concept of mental representation is applied to the study of psychopathology personality evaluation, social interactions of connection styles, and therapeutic gain. Recognizing the growth of the individual's personality, psychopathology is viewed in a more positive light through therapeutic technique. What research examines the evolution of mental representations or cognitive, affective design to become a major aspect of personality development and group formation? With cognitive neurological knowledge gleaned from the study of philosophy during the past century, the mind-body or mind-brain phenomenon will be accessible to discussion. Since Descartes, no one has unscientifically advocated an alternative real-world perspective on this issue. Researchers and thinkers have uncovered several ways, but none of them have promoted the advancement of intellectuals' inferiority. The separation between an individual's mind and consciousness is rarely examined or discussed during a person's daily labor, nonetheless, it is the root source of most of our existing difficulties. This is not even a known reality, as awareness and mind are a single entity. Still, separation is essential to existence. It is what exposes the materialist to the mind reader, potentially separating humanity from a gradually integrated middle ground. This paper will address whether the mind and brain are totally connected or if they are distinct entities. Motivated by the application of theoretical tools to brain analysis, but human biological constructions, researchers began researching the activity of the human brain.

Naturalizing the mind: binding common-sense functionalism and Neuropsychology

2008

"A central puzzle discussed within contemporary philosophy of mind is the problem of mental causation, which raises the question of how is it possible that our mind constitutes the ultimate cause of behaviour, given that certain brain states seem to be causally sufficient for the production of the same behaviour. This problem found its contemporary canonical form in the work of Jaegwon Kim (Kim, 1998) and is known as the “causal exclusion problem”. I shall argue in this paper (section 1) that the causal exclusion problem turns out to be an argument in favour of the token identity solution to the problem of the nature of the mind/brain relation. Since ontological reductionism is not dissociable from epistemological reductionism, I shall present (section 2) the Esfeld-Sachse model of inter-theoric reduction by means of functionally defined sub-concepts. Using an example from neuropsychology (section 3), I will then show how it should be applied to the mind in order to establish systematic links between psychological and neuropsychological descriptions (section 4). For the same reason I will discuss an example from of complex neuropsychopathology (section 5)."

Neural Correlates of Consciousness & the Nature of the Mind

2018

It is often thought that contemporary neuroscience provides strong evidence for physicalism that nullifies dualism. The principal data is neural correlates of consciousness (for brevity NCC). In this chapter I argue that NCC are neutral visà-vis physicalist and dualist views of the mind. First I clarify what NCC are and how neuroscientists identify them. Subsequently I discuss what NCC entail and highlight the need for philosophical argumentation in order to conclude that physicalism is true by appealing to NCC. Lastly, the simplicity argument for physicalism that appeals to NCC is presented, analyzed, and found wanting. As one surveys the history of philosophy it is easy to get the impression that both materialism and dualism have been viable contenders. 1 From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, versions of dualism were considered rational options. Yet, modern philosophy has been dominated by various versions of materialism and physicalism (cf. Göcke, 2012, p. 1). In the early ninetie...

Memory and 'the Cartesian Philosophy of the Brain'

Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism, 1998

This is chapter 3 of 'Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism' (CUP, 1998). I reinterpret Descartes' 'philosophy of the brain'. Descartes used animal spirits flowing through brain pores in tentatively suggesting a distributed model of memory employing superpositional storage. I defend this anachronistic reading against four strong objections, and articulate surprising conclusions about dynamics and the body in Cartesian mechanism. I discuss Descartes' spirits at such length not just to analyse his puzzling model of memory, but to query his talismanic place in philosophy and cultural studies alike as the demonic source of modern alienation. The permeation of psychology by context, culture, and body which animal spirits promoted (chapter 2) did not cease with the sudden fracture of self from matter with which Descartes is supposed to have urged on new scientists to master and possess passive nature. Mechanistic bodies are *also* dynamic (chapter 3).