scholarly journals A double face view on mind-brain relationship: the problem of mental causation

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-220
Author(s):  
Jonas Gonçalves Coelho
Keyword(s):  
Brain Structure ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Essential Property ◽  
Conscious Mind ◽  
Sociocultural Environment ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Face View ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract: Interpreting results of contemporary neuroscientif studies, I present a non-reductive physicalist account of mind-brain relationship from which the criticism of unintelligibility ascribed to the notion of mental causation is considered. Assuming that a paradigmatic criticism addressed to the notion of mental causation is that presented by Jaegwon Kim’s analysis on the theory of mind-body supervenience, I present his argument arguing that it encompasses a formulation of the problem of mental causation, which leads to difficulties by him pointed. To ask "how mental events, being a non-physical property of the brain, could act causally on brain structure and functioning?", is not to treat the mind as a property of the brain, but as a Cartesian substance. I argue that, rather than asking "how does mind could act causally on the brain?", as if the mind were something apart and independent of the brain, it would be more in line with a non-reductive physicalist view to ask "how the brain, guided by its mind, could act causally on itself?". To justify this last formulation of the problem of mental causation, I propose a "double face view", which consists in considering the consciousness as the essential property of the mind, and mind and brain as inseparable, dependent and irreducible faces. It means, in general terms, that the conscious mind is the result of brain structure and activity - "conscious mind as brain" - and that the brain, using its conscious mind as a guide to its actions, interacts with its body, and with the physical and sociocultural environment, constructing and being constructed by both - "brain as conscious mind".

scholarly journals Brain as agent and conscious mind as action guide: from Libet-style experiments to necessary conditions for free will

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-83
Author(s):  
Jonas Gonçalves Coelho
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
General View ◽  
Conscious Mind ◽  
Sociocultural Environment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Conscious Intention ◽  
The Brain

Many neuroscientific experiments, based on monitoring brain activity, suggest that it is possible to predict the conscious intention/choice/decision of an agent before he himself knows that. Some neuroscientists and philosophers interpret the results of these experiments as showing that free will is an illusion, since it is the brain and not the conscious mind that intends/chooses/decides. Assuming that the methods and results of these experiments are reliable the question is if they really show that free will is an illusion. To address this problem, I argue that first it is needed to answer three questions related to the relationship between conscious mind and brain: 1. Do brain events cause conscious events? 2. Do conscious events cause brain events? 3. Who is the agent, that is, who consciously intends/chooses/ decides, the conscious mind, the brain, or both? I answer these questions by arguing that the conscious mind is a property of the brain due to which the brain has the causal capacity to interact adaptively with its body, and trough the body, with the physical and sociocultural environment. In other words, the brain is the agent and the conscious mind, in its various forms - cognitive, volitional and emotional - and contents, is its guide of action. Based on this general view I argue that the experiments aforementioned do not show that free will is an illusion, and as a starting point for examining this problem I point out, from some exemplary situations, what I believe to be some of the necessary conditions for free will.Key-words: Agent brain, conscious mind, free will, Libet-style experiments.

Natural Brains and Motivated, Emotional Mind

2021 ◽  
pp. 82-138
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Synaptic Coupling ◽  
Subjective Character ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Conscious Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

We know that the brain is the seat of the mind. Constructing the reductive model of the conscious mind requires an indication of the laws according to which the mind emerges from biophysical processes occurring in natural brains. Because in Part I, the authors presented the theoretical model referring to the ideal structures of the imagined neural network, we now have easier task, because we need to indicate in the brains of the living beings those processes that functionally correspond to our postulates. Such suitability is not guaranteed by known processes occurring in specialized parts of the brain. The role of the primary sensory areas is a detailed analysis of sensory stimuli with specific modality. They result in analysis of the meaning of all useful stimuli and their interpretation used in various parts of the cortex. The high specialization of individual cortex areas is striking and are the result of evolutionary development of the brain. New brain structures, such as the new cortex, were added on the outskirts of existing structures, improving their performance in the ever more demanding environments, where other intelligent beings ravened. But even as we know the brain organization, we struggle to understand how it works. How neurons that make the brain work together to create the conscious mind. To discover functionally effective processes in the brain, one need to reach for the biophysical properties of the astrocyt-neural network. In this chapter, the authors suggest that some concepts of neuro-electro-dynamics and the phenomena of neuro- and synapto-genesis as well as synaptic couplings may explain the processes of categorization, generalization and association leading to the formation of extensive, semihierarchical brain structures constituting neural representations of perceptions, objects and phenomena. Natural brains meet the embodiment condition. They are products of evolution, so they have intentionality, their own goals and needs. So they can naturally show emotions, drives and instincts that motivate to act. This determines the nature of constructed mental representations. They are the subject of psychological research, which shows the motivation of pain and pleasure in the field of intelligent activities, as well as the motivation of curiosity and the need for understanding in the domain of propositional and phenomenal consciousness. They describe the way pain is felt in organisms as basic quale. The role of other qualia for “how-it-is-like to feel something” and their subjective character was explained, as well as their interspecies specificity was characterized. In this chapter, the authors present an elementary biophysical phenomenon, that is a flash of consciousness. This phenomenon is synaptic coupling formed in the course of learning. They justify that the stream of such phenomena is the foundation of consciousness. They also point out that the astrocytic-neural network meets all the conditions required to generate conscious sensations.

The Visible Invisible

Neuro ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Rose ◽  
Joelle M. Abi-Rached
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Structural Imaging ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter explores the diverse attempts to render “mind” thinkable by means of images. Advances in clinical medicine from the nineteenth century onward went hand in hand with the penetration of the gaze of the doctor into depths of the body itself. There are now many examples of analogous advances linked to the structural imaging of the brain—in the detection of tumors, the identification of lesions, and the mapping of the damage caused by injury or stroke. Thanks to such images, the mind of the neuroscientist, the neurologist, and the psychiatrist now seem able to “walk among the tissues themselves.” Yet, however similar the images of brain function are to those of brain structure, they mislead if they seem to allow the mind of the neuroscientist to walk among thoughts, feelings, or desires. Technology alone, even where it appears to measure neural activity, cannot enable the gaze to bridge the gap between molecules and mental states.

Neurologist, 13 years’ experience, Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 160-161
Author(s):  
Markus Reuber ◽  
Gregg H. Rawlings ◽  
Steven C. Schachter
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Epileptic Seizures ◽  
Unified View ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Brain

This chapter studies how challenging it is to communicate a diagnosis of Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures to patients. This could be due to the inability of one’s reasoning to get rid of the dualistic distinction of the mind from the brain. Plato was the first to believe that the soul, this indistinct, immaterial, and immortal entity devoid of any physical property, was imprisoned in the human body. Since then, this view has become deeply rooted among laypeople and even in the scientific community. The “substance dualism” was further elaborated by René Descartes in the seventeenth century and has its counterpart in the “mind–brain identity theory” discussed in modern Philosophy and Psychology. This dualism underlies the divide between Neurology and Psychiatry and has dissolved their harmonious primeval unity. Neurology is nowadays devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the brain, whereas Psychiatry focuses on problems of the mind, as if it were possible to separate what, in reality, are two sides of the same coin. Hopefully, a better understanding of Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures will bring people a step closer to producing a unified view of the human being.

Lighting Up the Brain to Illuminate the Mind

2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 713-716
Author(s):  
Ellen S. Berscheid
Keyword(s):  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

How Does the Brain Make the Mind? We Do Not Know.

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (32) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Was
Keyword(s):  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Big Heads title page

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
vernon thornton
Keyword(s):  
Title Page ◽  
Language Of Thought ◽  
Correct Version ◽  
Evolutionary Context ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

A description of of the mind and its relationship to the brain, set in an evolutionary context. Introduction of a correct version of 'language-of-thought' called 'thinkish'.

Zombies and Dolls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.

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