scholarly journals Mind Causality: A Computational Neuroscience Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund T. Rolls
Keyword(s):  
Computational Neuroscience ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Levels Of Explanation ◽  
Brain Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Different Levels

A neuroscience-based approach has recently been proposed for the relation between the mind and the brain. The proposal is that events at the sub-neuronal, neuronal, and neuronal network levels take place simultaneously to perform a computation that can be described at a high level as a mental state, with content about the world. It is argued that as the processes at the different levels of explanation take place at the same time, they are linked by a non-causal supervenient relationship: causality can best be described in brains as operating within but not between levels. This mind-brain theory allows mental events to be different in kind from the mechanistic events that underlie them; but does not lead one to argue that mental events cause brain events, or vice versa: they are different levels of explanation of the operation of the computational system. Here, some implications are developed. It is proposed that causality, at least as it applies to the brain, should satisfy three conditions. First, interventionist tests for causality must be satisfied. Second, the causally related events should be at the same level of explanation. Third, a temporal order condition must be satisfied, with a suitable time scale in the order of 10 ms (to exclude application to quantum physics; and a cause cannot follow an effect). Next, although it may be useful for different purposes to describe causality involving the mind and brain at the mental level, or at the brain level, it is argued that the brain level may sometimes be more accurate, for sometimes causal accounts at the mental level may arise from confabulation by the mentalee, whereas understanding exactly what computations have occurred in the brain that result in a choice or action will provide the correct causal account for why a choice or action was made. Next, it is argued that possible cases of “downward causation” can be accounted for by a within-levels-of-explanation account of causality. This computational neuroscience approach provides an opportunity to proceed beyond Cartesian dualism and physical reductionism in considering the relations between the mind and the brain.

scholarly journals A Neuroscience Levels of Explanation Approach to the Mind and the Brain

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund T. Rolls
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Levels Of Explanation ◽  
Processing Level ◽  
Reductive Physicalism ◽  
Brain States ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Different Levels

The relation between mental states and brain states is important in computational neuroscience, and in psychiatry in which interventions with medication are made on brain states to alter mental states. The relation between the brain and the mind has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Here a neuroscience approach is proposed in which events at the sub-neuronal, neuronal, and neuronal network levels take place simultaneously to perform a computation that can be described at a high level as a mental state, with content about the world. It is argued that as the processes at the different levels of explanation take place at the same time, they are linked by a non-causal supervenient relationship: causality can best be described in brains as operating within but not between levels. This allows the supervenient (e.g., mental) properties to be emergent, though once understood at the mechanistic levels they may seem less emergent, and expected. This mind-brain theory allows mental events to be different in kind from the mechanistic events that underlie them; but does not lead one to argue that mental events cause brain events, or vice versa: they are different levels of explanation of the operation of the computational system. This approach may provide a way of thinking about brains and minds that is different from dualism and from reductive physicalism, and which is rooted in the computational processes that are fundamental to understanding brain and mental events, and that mean that the mental and mechanistic levels are linked by the computational process being performed. Explanations at the different levels of operation may be useful in different ways. For example, if we wish to understand how arithmetic is performed in the brain, description at the mental level of the algorithm being computed will be useful. But if the brain operates to result in mental disorders, then understanding the mechanism at the neural processing level may be more useful, in for example, the treatment of psychiatric disorders.

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.

Do mental events cause neural events analogously to the probability fields of quantum mechanics?

1986 ◽  
Vol 227 (1249) ◽  
pp. 411-428 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Effective Action ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Nerve Impulse ◽  
Mental Event ◽  
The World ◽  
Synaptic Boutons ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain

If non-material mental events, such as the intention to carry out an action, are to have an effective action on neural events in the brain, it has to be at the most subtle and plastic level of these events. In the first stage of our enquiry an introduction to conventional synaptic theory leads on to an account of the manner of operation of the ultimate synaptic units. These units are the synaptic boutons that, when excited by an all-or-nothing nerve impulse, deliver the total contents of a single synaptic vesicle, not regularly, but probabilistically. This quantal emission of the synaptic transmitter molecules (about 5000-10000) is the elementary unit of the transmission process from one neuron to another. In the second stage this refined physiological analysis leads on to an account of the ultrastructure of the synapse, which gives clues as to the manner of its unitary probabilistic operation. The essential feature is that the effective structure of each bouton is a paracrystalline presynaptic vesicular grid with about 50 vesicles, which acts probabilistically in vesicular (quantal) release. In the third stage it is considered how a non-material mental event, such as an intention to move, could influence the subtle probabilistic operations of synaptic boutons. On the biological side, attention is focused on the paracrystalline presynaptic vesicular grids as the targets for non-material mental events. On the physical side, attention is focused on the probabilistic fields of quantum mechanics which carry neither mass nor energy, but which nevertheless can exert effective action at microsites. The new light on the mind—brain problem came from the hypothesis that the non-material mental events, the ‘ World 2 ’ of Popper, relate to the neural events of the brain (the ‘World 1' of matter and energy) by actions in conformity with quantum theory. This hypothesis that mental events act on probabilistic synaptic events in a manner analogous to the probability fields of quantum mechanics seems to open up an immense field of scientific investigation both in quantum physics and in neuroscience.

Quantum Metaphors and the Study of the Mind-Brain

1998 ◽  
pp. 228-234
Author(s):  
Delores D. Liston
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Brain Physiology ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Participant Observer ◽  
The Brain

Although much of current neuroscience literature speaks of the mind-brain, most study of the mind-brain generally remains focused on either the mind (psychology, philosophy or sociology) or the brain (physiology). Neuroscientists continue to be hampered by Cartesian dualism and the divisions it creates. Even when we speak of the mind-brain, our attention tends to revert to either the mind or the brain. A similar problem faced physicists earlier this century during the rise of quantum mechanics. I believe that adopting metaphors from quantum physics can help us overcome the tendency to dichotomize our study of the mind-brain. In this paper, I explore some of these metaphors (such as the participant-observer and wave-particle unity) to help establish a set of sustainable metaphors within which we can unify our interpretations of the mind-brain.

scholarly journals Motivative Factors of Professional Self-Realization of the Person

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktoriia Bedan ◽  
◽  
Iryna Brynza ◽  
Mykola Budiianskyi ◽  
Iryna Vasylenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Career Guidance ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Diagnostic Techniques ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Different Levels

Neuropsychologists pay much attention to career guidance for young people who are faced with the challenge of choosing the profession. Numerous studies on motivation and professional determination prove the need to identify individual features of the brain organization of mental functions in the context of psychological support for the educational process at school and career guidance. Neuropsychological research indicates the links between the predominant activity of a certain hemisphere of the brain and professional realization in certain areas. The empirical study was conducted using reliable and valid psycho-diagnostic techniques (“Questionnaire of professional self-realization” by O. M. Kokun (2014; 2016); the “Motivational profile” technique by S. Richie, & P. Martin (2004); correlation analysis). At the stage of qualitative analysis, two groups of subjects with different levels of professional self-realization were identified (using the «ace» method). A visual analysis of the motivational factors profile structure in groups with high and low levels of professional self-realisation demonstrated differences in the graphs configuration and their location, and also provided an opportunity to characterize the psychological motivation characteristics of representatives of each of the groups. Against the general background of communicative self-sufficiency, adaptability and self-confidence, in a group of persons with a high level of professional self-realisation, the dominant motives are constant improvement, recognition by others. Representatives of a group with a low level of the studied phenomenon are interested in the motives of good working conditions and high wages. It has been proved that persons with different levels of professional self-realization differ in the specificity of the dominance of motives.

Non-symbolic approaches to artificial intelligence and the mind

1994 ◽  
Vol 349 (1689) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Neural Networks ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Computational Neuroscience ◽  
External World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Symbolic Approach ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
New Algorithms

Current theories of artificial intelligence and the mind are dominated by the notion that thinking involves the manipulation of symbols. The symbols are intended to have a specific semantics in the sense that they represent concepts referring to objects in the external world and they conform to a syntax, being operated on by specific rules. I describe three alternative, non-symbolic approaches, each with a different emphasis but all using the same underlying computational model. This is a network of interacting computing units, a unit representing a nerve cell to a greater or lesser degree of fidelity in the different approaches. Computational neuroscience emphasizes the development and functioning of the nervous system; the approach of neural networks examines new algorithms for specific applications in, for example, pattern recognition and classification; according to the sub-symbolic approach , concepts are built up of entities called sub-symbols, which are the activities of individual processing units in a neural network. A frequently debated question is whether theories formulated at the subsymbolic level are ‘mere implementations’ of symbolic ones. I describe recent work due to Foster, who proposes that it is valid to view a system at many different levels of description and that, whereas any theory may have many different implementations, in general sub-symbolic theories may not be implementations of symbolic ones.

Contempt – Where the modularity of the mind meets the modularity of the brain?

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo Bzdok ◽  
Leonhard Schilbach
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Personality Structure ◽  
Basic Emotions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unique Aspect ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract“Contempt” is proposed to be a unique aspect of human nature, yet a non-natural kind. Its psychological construct is framed as a sentiment emerging from a stratification of diverse basic emotions and dispositional attitudes. Accordingly, “contempt” might transcend traditional conceptual levels in social psychology, including experience and recognition of emotion, dyadic and group dynamics, context-conditioned attitudes, time-enduring personality structure, and morality. This strikes us as a modern psychological account of a high-level, social-affective cognitive facet that joins forces with recent developments in the social neuroscience by drawing psychological conclusions from brain biology.

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.

scholarly journals Emergence, a Universal Phenomenon which Connects Reality to Consciousness, Natural Sciences to Humanities

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Gabriel Crumpei ◽  
Alina Gavriluţ
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Cognitive Neurosciences ◽  
Mathematical Formalization ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Progress in neuroscience has left a central question of psychism unanswered: what is consciousness? Modeling the psyche from a computational perspective has helped to develop cognitive neurosciences, but it has also shown their limits, of which the definition, description and functioning of consciousness remain essential. From Rene Descartes, who tackled the issue of psychism as the brain-mind dualism, to Chambers, who defined qualia as the tough, difficult problem of research in neuroscience, many hypotheses and theories have been issued to encompass the phenomenon of consciousness. Neuroscience specialists, such as Giulio Tononi or David Eagleman, consider consciousness as a phenomenon of emergence of all processes that take place in the brain. This hypothesis has the advantage of being supported by progress made in the study of complex systems in which the issue of emergence can be mathematically formalized and analyzed by physical-mathematical models. The current tendency to associate neural networks within the broad scope of network science also allows for a physical-mathematical formalization of phenomenology in neural networks and the construction of information-symbolic models. The extrapolation of emergence at the level of physical systems, biological systems and psychic systems can bring new models that can also be applied to the concept of consciousness. The meaning and significance that seem to structure the nature of consciousness is found as direction of evolution and teleological finality, of integration in the whole system and in any complex system at all scales. Starting from the wave-corpuscle duality in quantum physics, we can propose a model for structuring reality, based on the emergence of systems that contribute to the integration and coherence of the entire reality. Physical-mathematical models based mainly on (mereo)topology can provide a mathematical formalization path, and the paradigm of information could allow the development of a pattern of emergence, that is common to all systems, including the psychic system, the difference being given only by the degree of information complexity. Thus, the mind-brain duality, which has been dominating the representation on psychism for a few centuries, could be solved by an informational approach, describing the connection between object and subject, reality and human consciousness, between mind and brain, thus unifying the perspective on natural sciences and humanities.

Mind, Brain and Mental Illness

Philosophy ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 52 (199) ◽  
pp. 27-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Brain ◽  
As If

The distinction between mental illness and bodily illness would seem to presuppose some sort of distinction between mind and body. But dualist theories that the mind is a substance separable from the body, or that mental events could occur without any bodily events, raise ancient conceptual problems, which I do not propose to review here. What I want to do is to examine the psychiatric implications of materialist theories, which hold that the mind is the brain, or a function of the brain. If all character has a basis in chemistry, can we still attribute some mental distress to character and some to chemistry, as if the two categories were different?

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