The Mind-Body Debate
Mind-Brain Debate
What is the relationship between mind and brain?
Mind-Brain Debate
We are in fact considering an extreme case of reductionism
Mind-Brain Debate
Reducing man to the component parts of consciousness
Neuropsychology
Neurophysiology
Biology
Psychologists generally
This involves:
Mind-Brain Debate
There is general agreement that the mind (i.e. consciousness) is a property of human beingness.
Without a brain, there can be
no mind!
Mind-Brain Debate How can the two be related?
The body (brain) has Weight, Shape, Density and Physical Existence in
time and space
But the mind has none of these!
Mind-Brain Debate
The Question is:
How can a non-physical entity (the mind)
Influence and produce changes in something physical (Brain/Body)
Mind-Brain Debate
Example: Consider the act of scratching your head
In strictly scientific terms, this should not be possible. It is a purely subjective decision.
It involves the philosophy of two different kinds of substance:-
Non-physical mind and physical body
Mind-Brain Debate
The event of scratching my head involves the idea of causation.
From a materialistic viewpoint that should be impossible
Descartes believed that in this case, mind influences body
Mind-Brain Debate
Bit of a problem, eh? However, Science (including psychology) cannot accept
philosophical dualism – it’s either one or the other, mind or body.
Mind-Brain Debate
There is an evolutionary perspective – what survival value is there in consciousness/mind?
No value – unless it can bring about changes in behaviour.
Subjective experience says – mind does affect behaviour – try scratching your head!
Mind-Brain Debate
We have evolved with minds.Biological evolution has been for survival
value. If species doesn’t survive it doesn’t evolve.
We can assume that mind and body have evolved together for some reason because we have survived!
Mind-Brain Debate
Two main theories
Dualism – mind and brain coexist
Monism – mind and brain are separate
Dualism theories
Descartes
Epiphenomenology
Interactionism
Psychophysical Parallelism
Descartes
Mind influences body through pineal gland
But Descartes believed body could not influence mind.
Descartes
Descartes
Humphrey (1992) disagrees with Descartes.
Philosophy of Pain
PAIN
My pain can hardly count as a physical event.
It is not part of the objective world.It is not physical
PAIN
From the fact that there is no accompanying brain activity, we could say that my brain-based pain belongs nowhere else than in the world of physical material. It is, after all, nothing other than a physical event.
So, my pain – that is, my experience of pain – depends wholly on brain activity.
PAIN
Problem: to explain how and why and to what end the dependence on the non-physical mind and the physical brain has come about.
Somehow, between neural transmission and experience, there is a conversion.
It is nowhere near being understood.
Epiphenomenologists
Mind influenced by brain – reverse to Descartes.
An Epiphenomenon is ‘an accompanying event’, outside the chain of causation.
Epiphenomenology
Epiphenomenologists
Behaviour is caused by direct brain action and consciousness is a sort of indicator that it is happening.
Yet the mind is not involved in the process.
Where have we heard that before?Behaviourism – radical behaviourism in
fact.
Interactionists
They believe the mind-body influence is two-way
A kind of Liberal Democrat of the Mind-Body philosophy
Interactionism
Parallelists
Believe that mind and body exist but separately.
No effects between them.
Sometimes called psychophysical parallelists
Psychophysical Parallelism
Monist Theories
Can be mentalist – towards the mind end of the spectrum, or materialist, towards the body end.
mentalist materialist
Mentalism or Idealism
Only mental phenomena involved
Humanistic Psychology
Materialism
Two types
Periphalist
Centralist
Materialism – Periphalist theories
The mind is reduced to behaviour Watson claimed that thought was really
reduced to subvocalisation – a delicate instrument could pick it up.
Logical behaviourism: I think it will rain is translated into behaviour
when you unroll your umbrella. The mind = behaviour + disposition to behave
Centralist Materialism
Mental processes are identified with purely physical processes in the brain.
This is the aim of Cognitive Neuroscience
Mind-Brain Identity
Centralist materialismTakes the view that mental processes
are purely physical processes.They are no more than chemical
reactions/physical states in the brainMental states are equated with mind
states
Mind-brain identity
Place (1956): Is Consciousness a Brain Process?
Attempt to identify structures in the brain which correspond to mental states
What about brain-dead?
Mind-Brain Identity
Eliminative Materialism
And this really is where cognitive neuroscience is taking over!
Attempt to replace psychology with neurophysiology
Mind-Brain Identity
Crick (1994)“You, your joys, your sorrows, your
memories and your ambitions; your sense of personality and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast amount of nerve cells and their associated molecules”
