scholarly journals The possibility of physicalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 242-250
Author(s):  
Eduardo Giannetti
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Modern science has undermined belief in countless imaginary causalities. What is the nature of the relation between mind and brain? Philosophers have debated the issue for millennia, but it is only in the last twenty years that empirical evidence has begun to uncover some of the secrets of this ancient riddle. This lecture explores the possiblity that advances in neuroscience will undermine and subvert our intuitive, mentalist understanding of the mind-body relationship. Recent findings in neuroscience seem to support the notions that (i) mental events are a subclass of neurophysiological events, and (ii) they are devoid of causal efficacy upon the workings of the brain. If physicalism is true then the belief in the causal potency of conscious thoughts and free will are bound to join company with countless other imaginary causalities exploded by the progress of science.

Contemporary psychosurgery and a look to the future

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (6) ◽  
pp. 944-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Feldman ◽  
Ronald L. Alterman ◽  
James T. Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Psychiatric Disease ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Current State ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Patient Selection Criteria ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Fine Print

Object. Despite a long and controversial history, psychosurgery has persisted as a modern treatment option for some severe, medically intractable psychiatric disorders. The goal of this study was to review the current state of psychosurgery. Methods. In this review, the definition of psychosurgery, patient selection criteria, and anatomical and physiological rationales for cingulotomy, subcaudate tractotomy, anterior capsulotomy, and limbic leukotomy are discussed. The historical developments, modern procedures, and results of these four contemporary psychosurgical procedures are also reviewed. Examples of recent advances in neuroscience indicating a future role for neurosurgical intervention for psychiatric disease are also mentioned. Conclusions. A thorough understanding of contemporary psychosurgery will help neurosurgeons and other physicians face the ethical, social, and technical challenges that are sure to lie ahead as modern science continues to unlock the secrets of the mind and brain.

A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex

1990 ◽  
Vol 240 (1299) ◽  
pp. 433-451 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Cortex ◽  
Pyramidal Cells ◽  
Neuronal Structure ◽  
Mental Experience ◽  
Effective Selection ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Apical Dendrites ◽  
The Brain

A brief introduction to the brain-mind problem leads on to a survey of the neuronal structure of the cerebral cortex. It is proposed that the basic receptive units are the bundles or clusters of apical dendrites of the pyramidal cells of laminae V and III-II as described by Fleischhauer and Peters and their associates. There are up to 100 apical dendrites in these receptive units, named dendrons. Each dendron would have an input of up to 100000 spine synapses. There are about 40 million dendrons in the human cerebral cortex. A study of the influence of mental events on the brain leads to the hypothesis that all mental events, the whole of the World 2 of Popper, are composed of mental units, each carrying its own characteristic mental experience. It is further proposed that each mental unit, named psychon, is uniquely linked to a dendron. So the mind-brain problem reduces to the interaction between a dendron and its psychon for all the 40 million linked units. In my 1986 paper ( Proc. R. Soc. Lond . B 227, 411-428) on the mind-brain problem, there was developed the concept that the operation of the synaptic microsites involved displacement of particles so small that they were within range of the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. The psychon-dendron interaction provides a much improved basis for effective selection by a process analogous to a quantal probability field. In the fully developed hypothesis psychons act on dendrons in the whole world of conscious experiences and dendrons act on psychons in all perceptions and memories. It is shown how these interactions involve no violation of the conservation laws. There are great potentialities of these unitary concepts, for example as an explanation of the global nature of a visual experience from moment to moment. It would seem that there can be psychons not linked to dendrons, but only to other psychons, creating what we may call a psychon world.

Why We Should Reject Transhumanists’ Entire Lens on the Mind and Brain

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-84
Author(s):  
Susan B. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Dual Process ◽  
Appraisal Theory ◽  
Basic Emotion ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Mental Operations ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

“Basic-emotion” and “dual-process” theorists, joined by transhumanists, view the mind as a set of compartments whose functionality is explained by dedicated areas or systems in the brain. The two theoretical approaches reflect core misconceptions and have been supplanted by “appraisal theory.” Beyond capturing well the entwining of reason and emotion in our mental operations, Klaus Scherer’s version of appraisal theory is compatible with mounting evidence of the brain’s complexity. Having developed a scientific line of argument against transhumanists’ lens on the mind and brain, the author turns to Aristotle’s rational essentialism. Wrongly invoked to support transhumanists’ extreme version, Aristotle’s rational essentialism incorporates a necessary role for nonrational faculties and intrapsychic harmony. While transhumanists’ lens on the mind and brain is at odds with contemporary findings, Aristotle’s view of the mind shares important commitments with Scherer’s appraisal theory and is broadly compatible with an emerging picture of the brain’s complexity.

Mind, identity theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Ontological Categories ◽  
Great Merit ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

We know that the brain is intimately connected with mental activity. Indeed, doctors now define death in terms of the cessation of the relevant brain activity. The identity theory of mind holds that the intimate connection is identity: the mind is the brain, or, more precisely, mental states are states of the brain. The theory goes directly against a long tradition according to which mental and material belong to quite distinct ontological categories – the mental being essentially conscious, the material essentially unconscious. This tradition has been bedevilled by the problem of how essentially immaterial states could be caused by the material world, as would happen when we see a tree, and how they could cause material states, as would happen when we decide to make an omelette. A great merit of the identity theory is that it avoids this problem: interaction between mental and material becomes simply interaction between one subset of material states, namely certain states of a sophisticated central nervous system, and other material states. The theory also brings the mind within the scope of modern science. More and more phenomena are turning out to be explicable in the physical terms of modern science: phenomena once explained in terms of spells, possession by devils, Thor’s thunderbolts, and so on, are now explained in more mundane, physical terms. If the identity theory is right, the same goes for the mind. Neuroscience will in time reveal the secrets of the mind in the same general way that the theory of electricity reveals the secrets of lightning. This possibility has received enormous support from advances in computing. We now have at least the glimmerings of an idea of how a purely material or physical system could do some of the things minds can do. Nevertheless, there are many questions to be asked of the identity theory. How could states that seem so different turn out to be one and the same? Would neurophysiologists actually see my thoughts and feelings if they looked at my brain? When we report on our mental states what are we reporting on – our brains?

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The ‘Conclusion’ summarizes fundamental concepts and insights of the book. The brain is presented as an organ of mediation, transformation, and resonance. Its functions are integrated by the living organism as a whole, or by the embodied person, respectively: persons have brains, they are not brains. The deadlocks of the mind–body problem result from a short circuit between mind and brain which follows as a consequence from the systematic exclusion of life. A combination of phenomenological, embodied, and enactive approaches seems best suited to overcome this deficit. In contrast to naturalistic reductionism, this leads to a personalistic concept of the human being which has its basis in intercorporeality: it is in the concrete bodily encounter that we primarily recognize each other as embodied subjects or persons.

The Illusion of Conscious Will

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Wegner ◽  
Daniel Gilbert ◽  
Thalia Wheatley
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conscious Will ◽  
Ouija Board

Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. The first edition of this book proposed an innovative and provocative answer: the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain; it helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, the book says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion (“the most compelling illusion”), it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. This new edition includes a foreword and an introduction. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, the book examines cases both when people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing and when they are not willing an act that they in fact are doing in such phenomena as hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, and dissociative identity disorder. The author's argument was immediately controversial (called “unwarranted impertinence” by one scholar) but also compelling, and the book has been called the author's magnum opus.

scholarly journals Emergent processes in cognitive-emotional interactions

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-448 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Basal Forebrain ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Anatomical Evidence ◽  
Made In

Emotion and cognition have been viewed as largely separate entities in the brain. Within this framework, significant progress has been made in understanding specific aspects of behavior. Research in the past two decades, however, has started to paint a different picture of brain organization, one in which network interactions are key to understanding complex behaviors. From both basic and clinical perspectives, the characterization of cognitive-emotional interactions constitutes a fundamental issue in the investigation of the mind and brain. This review will highlight the interactive and integrative potential that exists in the brain to bring together the cognitive and emotional domains. First, anatomical evidence will be provided, focusing on structures such as hypothalamus, basal forebrain, amygdala, cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. Data on functional interactions will then be discussed, followed by a discussion of a dual competition framework, which describes cognitive-emotional interactions in terms of perceptual and cognitive competition mechanisms.

scholarly journals DA RELAÇÃO CORPO-ALMA À MENTE-CÉREBRO: A ANTROPOLOGIA CRISTÃ E AS NOVAS ANTROPOLOGIAS

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (129) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Renato Alves De Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que a questão referente aos dois princípios metafísicos constitutivos da antropologia cristã, o corpo/matéria e a alma/espírito, e a forma de conceber a relação entre eles encontra-se presentes no subsolo das novas antropologias materialistas, mas com um novo verniz através da relação entre a mente e o cérebro. Para a antropologia cristã, a existência do binômio corpo-alma é uma questão resolvida. As discussões se concentram na forma de conceber a relação entre ambos os princípios. Analogamente, para algumas antropologias materialistas atuais, a existência da mente e do cérebro é uma questão fechada. Os confrontos encontram-se na forma de conceber as relações entre a mente e o cérebro: há uma identificação ou distinção entres ambas as realidades? A mente seria uma qualidade emergente do cérebro? ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to show that the question concerning the two constituent metaphysical principles of Christian anthropology, body/matter and soul/spirit, and the way of conceiving the relationship between them is presente in the basement of the new materialist anthropologies, but with a new varnish through the relationship between mind and brain. For Christian anthropology, the existence of the binomial soul/body is a settled issue. The discussions focus on how to design the relationship between the two principles. Similarly, for some current materialistic anthropologies, the existence of the mind and the brain is a closed question. The clashes are the way of conceiving the relationship between mind and brain: Is there an identification or a distinction between the two realities? Would be the mind an emergent quality of the brain?

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack M. Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter concludes the book’s discussion of how experience changes the brain. It summarizes the positions that have been taken in the preceding chapters: that the human brain is unique even in comparison to our nearest genetic neighbors in the great ape family, that the mind is the organ of the brain and all of its functions can be explained by molecular activity within the brain, and that psychotherapy is an experience that changes the brain. It provides a discussion on how neuroscience and psychology are fundamentally intertwined, linking the mind and brain, and it emphasizes the rapidly evolving, changing nature of the field of neuroscience and argues the need for more research linking psychotherapy with neurobiology.

Philosophy Redivivus?

1998 ◽  
pp. 86-92
Author(s):  
Oskar Gruenwald
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Scientific Advance ◽  
New Era ◽  
Stephen Hawking ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Science And Faith ◽  
The Brain

Curiously, in the late twentieth century, even agnostic cosmologists like Stephen Hawking—who is often compared with Einstein—pose metascientific questions concerning a Creator and the cosmos, which science per se is unable to answer. Modern science of the brain, e.g. Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind (1994), is only beginning to explore the relationship between the brain and the mind-the physiological and the epistemic. Galileo thought that God's two books-Nature and the Word-cannot be in conflict, since both have a common author: God. This entails, inter alia, that science and faith are to two roads to the Creator-God. David Granby recalls that once upon a time, science and religion were perceived as complementary enterprises, with each scientific advance confirming the grandeur of a Superior Intelligence-God. Are we then at the threshold of a new era of fruitful dialogue between science and religion, one that is mediated by philosophy in the classical sense? In this paper I explore this question in greater detail.

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