Chapter 6 The MindBody Problem Types of minds

Chapter 6 • The Mind-Body Problem

Types of minds (awareness) • Perceptual mind: least complex • Reasoning mind: somewhat complex • Conscious mind: most complex

The Greeks • • No thing moves by itself If a thing moves, something else moved it Bodies are things, and they move Therefore something is moving the body • They called it psyche (mind or soul)

Substance dualism • Decartes reasoned: – Things can be broken down into parts – My mind cannot be – Therefore my mind is not a thing (a spirit then? ) – The soul is a real thing; it rests in the pineal gland, operating on the brain like a pilot controlling the ship

Implications of dualism? • What happens to the pilot of the ship when he crashes or sinks that ship?

Problem with dualism • The problem of interaction: How can a spiritual, mental, or experiential property move something in the physical world? How can it “touch” physical brain to make it move my hand? • The problem of emergence: If you argue that mind is a product of the right kind of arrangement of neural connections, then can mind emerge whenever any set of physical properties is arranged in the right kind of way? Can we let electrical wires communicate with one another in the right kind of arrangement to produce a mind?

Monism / Materialism • Ignore or deny the mind / spirit, focus only on the physical material – Behaviorism – Mind-brain identity theory – Functionalism

Behaviorism stimulus response Because we can’t measure anything in the black box, we should not think or talk about it. What do you think?

Mind-Brain Identity Theory • Brain processes (electrical activity, neural communication) produce experience. • So mind = brain + activity

Functionalism • With growing interest in the computer and the teachings of a great philosopher and psychologist William James, psychology and philosophy moved toward functionalism: interest in how and why things function • This motivated computer programmers and philosophers to suggest that any system, whether organic or made from silicon, could in theory be built with the right connections allowing it to have mental states (i. e. , a mind)

Contemporary view: Property dualism • There is only one substance: brain matter • It has two kinds of properties: physical and experiential (consciousness)

Property dualism view #1 • The relationship between physical and experiential is like relationship between a lamp plugged in and light • Or like the lattice structure of molecules that gives rise to solidity (Searle)

Property dualism view #2 Or, maybe consciousness is an epiphenomenon; it observes but cannot affect behavior

Property dualism view #3 • Currently, most cognitive neuroscientists believe consciousness helps to plan, begin, & guide behaviors

Neuroscience on role of consciousness • Event-related potential (ERP) waveforms in the aware-correct, unawarecorrect, and unawareincorrect conditions. The greatest differences among the conditions occurred for the P 3 component (shown in light gray). In the bottom part of the figure, the extent of brain positivity in the three conditions is shown in red. From Lamy et al. (2009). © 2009 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Locus of consciousness, then and now

In small groups / pairs • Do you have any personal experiences with unconsciousness or altered consciousness? What were the outcomes? Good / Bad? • What can these experiences teach us about consciousness and its use in our lives? Is it necessary?