The Mind-Body Debate

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The Mind-Body Debate
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Mind-Brain Debate

• What is the relationship between mind and brain?

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Mind-Brain Debate

• We are in fact considering an extreme case of
  reductionism

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Mind-Brain Debate
Reducing man to the component parts of
consciousness
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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!
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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!
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Mind-Brain Debate

• The Question is
• How can a non-physical entity (the mind)
• Influence and produce changes in something
  physical (Brain/Body)

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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

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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

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Mind-Brain Debate

• Bit of a problem, eh? However, Science (including
  psychology) cannot accept philosophical dualism
  its either one or the other, mind or body.

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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!

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Mind-Brain Debate

• We have evolved with minds.
• Biological evolution has been for survival value.
  If species doesnt survive it doesnt evolve.
• We can assume that mind and body have evolved
  together for some reason because we have survived!

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Mind-Brain Debate

• Two main theories
• Dualism mind and brain coexist
• Monism mind and brain are separate

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Dualism theories
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Descartes

• Mind influences body through pineal gland
• But Descartes believed body could not influence
  mind.

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Descartes

• Humphrey (1992) disagrees with Descartes.
• Philosophy of Pain

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PAIN

• My pain can hardly count as a physical event.
• It is not part of the objective world.
• It is not physical

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PAIN

• From the fact that there is no accompanying brain
  activity, we coud 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.

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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.

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Epiphenomenologists

• Mind influenced by brain reverse to Descartes.
• An Epiphenomenon is an accompanying event,
  outside the chain of causation.

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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.

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Interactionists

• They believe the mind-body influence is two-way
• A kind of Liberal Democrat of the Mind-Body
  philosophy

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Parallelists

• Believe that mind and body exist but separately.
  
• No effects between them.
• Sometimes called psychophysical parallelists

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Monist Theories

• Can be mentalist towards the mind end of the
  spectrum, or materialist, towards the body end.

materialist
mentalist
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Mentalism or Idealism

• Only mental phenomena involved
• Humanistic Psychology

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Materialism

• Two types
• Periphalist
• Centralist

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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

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Centralist Materialism

• Mental processes are identified with purely
  physical processes in the brain.
• This is the aim of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Mind-Brain Identity

• Centralist materialism
• Takes the view that mental processes are purely
  physical processes.
• They are no more than chemical reactions/physical
  states in the brain
• Mental states are equated with mind states

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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?

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Mind-Brain Identity

• Eliminative Materialism
• And this really is where cognitive neuroscience
  is taking over!
• Attempt to replace psychology with neurophysiology

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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