Mind-Brain-Dualism

[The Engineer]

I recently had a discussion with another member about whether the mind and the brain are really separate entities, or whether the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. Sadly, the debate led us nowhere, for some reason, which is why I've started this thread.

I know that this is traditionally called Mind-Body-Dualism, but I think Mind-Brain-Dualism is the more accurate term.

My view is that the the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. The two are linked to each other, you can't remove one of them while leaving the other one intact.

The reason why I hold this view is because changes to the brain almost always correlate with changes to the mind. A few examples:
Drugs. Specifically, methamphetamine, more commonly known as crystal. It has been shown that long-time users of methamphetamine suffer from depression years after abstinence. It has also been shown, mainly in animal experiments, that methamphetamine damages serotonin-receptors in the brain. Serotonin, for those who don't know, is commonly regarded as a happiness hormone.
Lobotomies. During a lobotomy, the frontal lobe of the brain is intentionally damaged. This has been shown to make patients apathetic.
The amygdala. The amygdalas are segments of the brain, present in both hemispheres. They are linked to emotional responses, especially fear and anger. It was shown that stimulation of the amygdala correlates with feelings of fear and anger. It has also been shown that transplantation of or damage to the amygdala correlates with a decline in emotional responses, and the incapability to process emotions.

As you can see, changes to the brain correlate with changes to the mind, and they do so in a predictable pattern. Likewise, processes of the mind show up in MRI‘s and similar imaging techniques. The two are so strongly correlated that the majority neuroscientists agree they are causated, too.


This leaves us with the question of whether the mind influences the brain, or whether the brain causes the mind. At first glance, both options look equally valid. However, on further inspectation, it becomes apparent that the first hypothesis is the weaker one, as it leaves many questions unanswered. For example, why would the mind cause the blood flow in the brain to change? Why does a depressed mind cause damage to serotonin receptors? Why does the mind change when the brain changes? And, last but not least: Why does the mind need the brain at all? It also attributes supernatural properties to the mind, which are unfalsifiable.


In the end, I arrived at the conclusion that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Any thoughts?

 

[Paradoxum]

Get get how the mind could be just 'simply an emergent property of the brain', but what does that mean? It seems quite obvious that they are linked, but does it make sense to say the brain creates the mind? I have no earthly idea how something physical can create something mental. The experience of colour is obviously something quite different from the equations of light and chemicals of the brain. How can chemicals in a certain configuration make it seem like an 'I' sees an elephant in 'I's' mind. The chemicals are nothing like the elephant.

I think the idea of a common substance does solve this quite well, but I have no idea if it could be true. By this I mean that perhaps the physical and the mental have a common source which is both physical and mental at the same time. Or to put it another way: If you make a change the change is both physical and mental at the same time, so it isn't that one affects the other. I got this from Spinoza, but it could quite easily be wrong. It is just a nice idea.

 

[Elioenai26]

I recently had a discussion with another member about whether the mind and the brain are really separate entities, or whether the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. Sadly, the debate led us nowhere, for some reason, which is why I've started this thread.

I know that this is traditionally called Mind-Body-Dualism, but I think Mind-Brain-Dualism is the more accurate term.

My view is that the the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. The two are linked to each other, you can't remove one of them while leaving the other one intact.

The reason why I hold this view is because changes to the brain almost always correlate with changes to the mind. A few examples:
Drugs. Specifically, methamphetamine, more commonly known as crystal. It has been shown that long-time users of methamphetamine suffer from depression years after abstinence. It has also been shown, mainly in animal experiments, that methamphetamine damages serotonin-receptors in the brain. Serotonin, for those who don't know, is commonly regarded as a happiness hormone.
Lobotomies. During a lobotomy, the frontal lobe of the brain is intentionally damaged. This has been shown to make patients apathetic.
The amygdala. The amygdalas are segments of the brain, present in both hemispheres. They are linked to emotional responses, especially fear and anger. It was shown that stimulation of the amygdala correlates with feelings of fear and anger. It has also been shown that transplantation of or damage to the amygdala correlates with a decline in emotional responses, and the incapability to process emotions.

As you can see, changes to the brain correlate with changes to the mind, and they do so in a predictable pattern. Likewise, processes of the mind show up in MRI‘s and similar imaging techniques. The two are so strongly correlated that the majority neuroscientists agree they are causated, too.


This leaves us with the question of whether the mind influences the brain, or whether the brain causes the mind. At first glance, both options look equally valid. However, on further inspectation, it becomes apparent that the first hypothesis is the weaker one, as it leaves many questions unanswered. For example, why would the mind cause the blood flow in the brain to change? Why does a depressed mind cause damage to serotonin receptors? Why does the mind change when the brain changes? And, last but not least: Why does the mind need the brain at all? It also attributes supernatural properties to the mind, which are unfalsifiable.


In the end, I arrived at the conclusion that the mind is an emergent property of the brain. Any thoughts?

I believe examples of mental-to-physcial causation can be a good starting point to refute the idea that "the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain".

It seems to me that for some reason you want to maintain that the mind is only an emergent property of the brain even while you at the same time admit that changes to the brain almost always correlate with changes to the mind. The word almost here gives off this idea of uncertainty or unsureness or inconclusiveness which could lend itself to being seen as contradictory to your earlier statement.

 

[The Engineer]

Get get how the mind could be just 'simply an emergent property of the brain', but what does that mean? It seems quite obvious that they are linked, but does it make sense to say the brain creates the mind? I have no earthly idea how something physical can create something mental.

Memories, thoughts, experiences, all those things are actually physical processes, so there's no problem with them being created by a physical entity.

The experience of colour is obviously something quite different from the equations of light and chemicals of the brain. How can chemicals in a certain configuration make it seem like an 'I' sees an elephant in 'I's' mind. The chemicals are nothing like the elephant.

It's not just chemicals, but also circuits, which have enough precision for something like that. Think about how your computer generates the picture of an elephant if you google for them.

Concerning the mind, Thomas Metzinger put forth the idea that the 'self' is not an entity, but a process, which allows us to watch our own thoughts. That would put it in the same realm as other sensory experiences, if you ask me.

I think the idea of a common substance does solve this quite well, but I have no idea if it could be true. By this I mean that perhaps the physical and the mental have a common source which is both physical and mental at the same time. Or to put it another way: If you make a change the change is both physical and mental at the same time, so it isn't that one affects the other. I got this from Spinoza, but it could quite easily be wrong. It is just a nice idea.

It's a nice idea, I agree, but unfalsifiable.

It seems to me that for some reason you want to maintain that the mind is only an emergent property of the brain even while you at the same time admit that changes to the brain almost always correlate with changes to the mind. The word almost here gives off this idea of uncertainty or unsureness or inconclusiveness which could lend itself to being seen as contradictory to your earlier statement.

Thanks for pointing that out. However, I used this word because some damages to the brain don't change the mind, but instead lead to loss of motor functions or other things. Damage to the visual cortex will make you blind, but it won't change your personality.

I said that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, not that the brain has no other purpose than to create the mind. The contradiction you pointed out wasn't a contradiction at all.

By the way, by quoting the exact sentence you want to respond to and not the whole post, you can make your posts a lot more precise.

 

[Eudaimonist]

My view is that the the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. The two are linked to each other, you can't remove one of them while leaving the other one intact.

That's pretty much my view as well. I also take a dual-aspect perspective on the mind-body distinction. My view are pretty close to those found here:

A Dual-Aspect Approach to the Mind-Body Problem


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

Memories, thoughts, experiences, all those things are actually physical processes, so there's no problem with them being created by a physical entity.

I'm not sure you understand my problem. I don't get how one can get from electrical circuits, etc, to actually feeling or seeing something as an experience.

It's not just chemicals, but also circuits, which have enough precision for something like that. Think about how your computer generates the picture of an elephant if you google for them.

True, but that is because it turns on lights that look like an elephant. The same thing can be applied to my experience of seeing that light.

Concerning the mind, Thomas Metzinger put forth the idea that the 'self' is not an entity, but a process, which allows us to watch our own thoughts. That would put it in the same realm as other sensory experiences, if you ask me.

I have little problem with 'I' being just a thing that watches thought happen, but I don't think that solves the problem.

It's a nice idea, I agree, but unfalsifiable.

It would perhaps require physics to go deeper into the make up of the universe.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I'm not well versed int the biological aspects of this so I must ask this question. We know that changes in the brain can effect changes in the mind, but do changes in the mind effect changes in the brain and how do we know which changes are brain caused and mind effected vs mind caused and brain effected?

 

[KCfromNC]

I'm not well versed int the biological aspects of this so I must ask this question. We know that changes in the brain can effect changes in the mind, but do changes in the mind effect changes in the brain and how do we know which changes are brain caused and mind effected vs mind caused and brain effected?

To even ask this question you'd have to assume that mind is something more than "one of the things the brain does". Since there's no reason to make this jump, you're basically just asking if different processes in the brain can interact, with the obvious answer being yes.

 

[KCfromNC]

I'm not sure you understand my problem. I don't get how one can get from electrical circuits, etc, to actually feeling or seeing something as an experience.

The hard part of this is going to be explaining what you mean by "actually" feeling, seeing or experiencing without assuming some sort of dualism in the first place. Sure, it feels like something magical when we experience it inside our heads, but every objective measurement we can take shows that it is just electrochemical reactions going on in the brain. The evidence also shows that our conscious mind is particularly bad at reporting what the brain is actually doing, so we have good reason to believe these magical feelings are not an accurate picture of the internal workings of the brain.

 

[grasping the after wind]

To even ask this question you'd have to assume that mind is something more than "one of the things the brain does". Since there's no reason to make this jump, you're basically just asking if different processes in the brain can interact, with the obvious answer being yes.

My question does not assume anything of the sort it only raises the possibility that the cause and effect might not be clear cut. It is your assumption that the mind is "simply something the brain does", an assumption that may or may not prove to be true but since the one making the assumption shows a lack of clear reasoning in that he confuses a question with an assumption and then proposes that one of his assumptions is true because it hasn't been proven false, I cannot find the answer to be a serious response to my question.

 

[Paradoxum]

The hard part of this is going to be explaining what you mean by "actually" feeling, seeing or experiencing without assuming some sort of dualism in the first place. Sure, it feels like something magical when we experience it inside our heads, but every objective measurement we can take shows that it is just electrochemical reactions going on in the brain. The evidence also shows that our conscious mind is particularly bad at reporting what the brain is actually doing, so we have good reason to believe these magical feelings are not an accurate picture of the internal workings of the brain.

If we use physical things to measure physical things then it seems obvious that all we will discover is physical things. It really doesn't give an answer to how they are related.

I agree that the conscious mind doesn't know most things that are happening in the brain or subconscious. But what does that prove?

 

[KCfromNC]

My question does not assume anything of the sort it only raises the possibility that the cause and effect might not be clear cut. It is your assumption that the mind is "simply something the brain does"

It's more of a tentative conclusion, really. Every instance of a mind we've ever observed has been linked to a working brain. Changing that brain changes the mind. We don't find minds without brains. And so on - there's lots of evidence that the mind is a process of the brain. There's no evidence of anything else going on, so to pretend that dualism is on equal footing is kind of a stretch.

I cannot find the answer to be a serious response to my question.

Oh well.

 

[The Engineer]

As far as I can see, one of the main problems people seem to have with my idea (well, not exactly my idea – I didn’t invent it, but I formulated the justification I wrote) is that they can’t understand how the brain can experience objects and be aware of them if the mind is just another function of the brain. This is why I invented this little thought experiment, in the hopes that it will help some of you in understanding my position.

It is first necessary to look at the most primitive forms of sensory perception conceivable.

Imagine you had a switch, with a light receptor. If light hits it, the switch is ON. If it is not hit by light, the switch is OFF. Congratulations, you have the most primitive eye imaginable! You can link this switch to whatever mechanism you want. A sensible configuration in a snail, for example, would be to link the OFF position to the activation of the muscles that are responsible for retracting the snail back into its house to escape damage.

There are a variety of ways to make this system more complex. You can add different receptors for green, red and blue light, different receptors for different intensities, and you can make the configurations of the switches more complex. Make it complex enough, and you might end up with something resembling a human eye.

Of course, linking the different switches to different areas of the body would be stupid in a human (although it works for cephalopods - the brains of those guys have no control over their arms).

What do you do instead? Simple: You link it to some central cluster which reviews the data all those switches collect. This cluster is presented with a combination of different stimuli, and its job is to find out what those stimuli could mean. If they spell DANGER, it will tell your legs to run, for example. This central cluster can be thought of as a primitive brain.


As the number of possible reactions grows, directly linking to different actions becomes increasingly stupid. A nematode doesn’t have so many options when he encounters a predator: all he can do is try to get away. For a human, the number of options is magnitudes bigger. If you encountered a predator, you could run away, try to fight it, alarm your friends, all in a number of different ways.


At this point, linking to individual body parts is just dumb. Imagine seeing a bear, and having your right leg kick. Completely useless.


What you need is a part of the brain that gets alarmed when the brain reviews the data it receives from the stimuli and encounters a particular situation. Instead of directly linking to a muscle, the brain links to a specialized part of itself.


You now have emotions. When you encounter a bear, your eyes see it, your brain reviews what your eyes saw, and when it senses DANGER, it alarms the part of your brain that is responsible for reacting to danger. This part of the brain now thinks about what to do in case of a bear attack; it doesn’t just react, it thinks, too, in order to find the best way to avoid this danger. Other emotions work in a similar way.


Your eyes can see, part of the brain reviews what they saw and links to another part that thinks about what to do. This system is much more complex than your ON-OFF switch, but we’re not finished yet.


What’s missing is yet another separate part of the brain that thinks about what the other parts saw. This part actively monitors the reviews your brain creates of sensory stimuli, and it monitors the emotions your brain creates, in order to improve your reactions to future stimuli. It not only monitors those part, it can even change them. It can tell brain to punch the bear in the face in the next encounter, for example, because you read an article the night before which told you that punching bears is pretty effective (it isn’t, but lets assume it is for arguments sake).


This part of the brain is your awareness. It is like a separate set of sensory organs and thinking machines inside your brain, and it is responsible for reviewing and correcting what your brain does. If it senses that the thoughts of your brain don’t make sense, it will tell your brain so.


You react to stimuli, just like every creature with sensory organs of some kind. The difference between you and, say, a nematode, is that you react to inner stimuli, like thought processes, too, and that your reactions to all stimuli are extremely complex.


I hope this could help, and I hope I didn’t write too much crap. To be completely honest, this is the very first time I used this argument, and I just made it up myself, which is why I’m pretty sure it’s not perfect.


(Also, sorry for the smug smile of my avatar. I’m not exactly smug right now, I can tell you. Not in this thread, anyway.)

 

[Paradoxum]

I get all this, and that could be the purpose of consciousness, but I'm not sure if it explains the problem. I don't know if it would even be possible to. You could be right, but I have no idea how to tell.

 

[Illuminaughty]

I think the panexperientialists have the best answer to the mind-brain dilemma. A lot of times those who reject eliminative materialism fall into the untenable position of supporting absolute mind body dualism but panexperiantialism doesn't do that. It's neither materialist, idealist, or dualist.

Panexperientialism

Panpsychism

http://panexperientialism.blogspot.com/2004/12/whitehead-abstruseness-and-emotion.html

The reason I included links on panpsychism is because panexperientialism is a form of panpsychism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSmfhc_8gew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YxuK7W_Pz0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycRu9bhrWhc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSmfhc_8gew&feature=relmfu

 

[dbcsf]

I know that this is traditionally called Mind-Body-Dualism, but I think Mind-Brain-Dualism is the more accurate term.

My view is that the the mind is simply an emergent property of the brain. The two are linked to each other, you can't remove one of them while leaving the other one intact.

I currently agree it all likely starts as a brain developing an infant mind. The mind likely "emerges" from the brain at some point. After some period of time or growth it seems to go both ways.

I believe generally there is not enough scientific evidence currently to understand. All we can really do is speculate, for the time being. Maybe in 50 years we will have a better picture.

Generally I believe Aquinas would more or less agree with you. He considered the mind and the brain as two different things, but inseparable. He believed we can talk about them in pieces, but they do not work apart from each other.

He never really developed the idea of which was the master of which, to my knowledge, or whether they are both together from conception, or what caused the development of what, or whatever.

The early modern philosophers are the ones who really opened this can of worms. They seemed to believe the mind and the brain were separate. Then the question of how does information get from the senses to the mind hits a wall when you get to the brain.

As has been pointed out by paradox, where exactly in your brain is your picture of president Obama. We all have one, it is in picture format in our minds, but no one can really pinpoint it in the brain. Maybe someday, perhaps with computer intelligence experiments, we will learn more, for example.

Generally I agree that the brain affects the mind all the time. In terms of the reverse, I have a few examples.

My grandmother really missed her husband when he died. She died a year of so after him. The University of Rochester discovered neurons connecting the cerebral cortex and the immune system. Perhaps she "thought" herself to death. It is a common phenomenon.

Also, there is the stigmata. There have been approximately 500 people since Francis of Assisi who have manifested the stigmata. There are an estimated 30 or so alive today who can do it. There was a psychologist who once developed a theory about it and tested it on an innocent young girl. She had the personality characteristics he identified which made her a likely candidate. He had her read the passion portion of the bible every night and spend hours contemplating the crucifixion staring at a huge bloody crucifix. After three months she was able to bleed at the wrists just by thinking about it with her mind.

Self hypnosis may be another example. First a person makes a mental decision to go to sleep, then they use their practiced control over their brain to put their brain to sleep.

People make choices about what to remember, what to learn, etc. A person's mind can tell their brain how to act. Memorizing involves developing neural pathways.

 

[TScott]

What you need is a part of the brain that gets alarmed when the brain reviews the data it receives from the stimuli and encounters a particular situation. Instead of directly linking to a muscle, the brain links to a specialized part of itself.


You now have emotions. When you encounter a bear, your eyes see it, your brain reviews what your eyes saw, and when it senses DANGER, it alarms the part of your brain that is responsible for reacting to danger. This part of the brain now thinks about what to do in case of a bear attack; it doesn’t just react, it thinks, too, in order to find the best way to avoid this danger. Other emotions work in a similar way.

I'm not sure you are capturing the emotion of fear here. Emotions do not always use reason, do they. Glad, mad and sad are emotions as is fear, but you haven't really described the emotion of fear, just how we sometimes react to it. What are these emotions? There is a great deal of subjectivity involved in them, is there not? Some people may see a bear and be so afraid that they panic, while others see the bear, recognize the danger and act accordingly, unemotionally.

 

[Davian]

I think the panexperientialists have the best answer to the mind-brain dilemma.
...

If one presumes that there is a mind-brain dilemma.

This is a lecture from philosopher Daniel Dennett, The Magic of Consciousness:

"Daniel Dennett is Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. "

"Here Professor Dennett lectures on the philosophical obstacles to understanding consciousness. This lecture includes topics covered in detail in his wonderful books "Consciousness Explained" and "Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness".

He covers Cartesian dualism, and at the 47 min mark, talks about 'common sense' solutions.

The Magic of Consciousness - YouTube

 

[nebulaJP]

OP: Idealism makes much more sense than either physicalism or dualism. The double slit experiment proves that sub-atomic particles only exist as probability distributions until information is collected about their location. It is said that this law of physics applies at the quantum scale but not at at the macro or classical level of everyday objects. Why? Physical laws are either true or not regardless of scale. The double slit experiment proves there is no objective physical reality.

We have very good analogies now of how this works: video games, especially MMORPGs. There is a common virtual reality and there are players controlling avatars. If a player's avatar looks at the moon then the moon is rendered for that player. That is how it works in our reality. There is only information, no matter. The moon, our brains, oxygen molecules, water… all only exist as information, probability distributions, until someone collects information about them. Imagine you are playing Sims and your character is a brain surgeon. You cut open another player's avatar's skull and you find a brain in there. The brain was not rendered for you until you cut open the avatar's skull. What makes the other character move around is the player operating his avatar, making it interact with the virtual world, not the brain in the avatar's skull, because the physicality of the brain is only an illusion.

What kind of system would waste resources? Why is there any need for vast distances of space and uninhabited solar systems? It makes much more sense that nothing exists unless some type of conscious entity, be it a bug, mouse or human requires information from his or her surroundings, in which case physical reality is rendered as a data stream for that individual.

So what are we then? Units of consciousness. We may reside on a computer of a more advanced species as partitions of data, and they may reside on the computer of a more advanced species than them and so on and on into infinity. If this is so then someday we will simulate a big bang on a computer and let that universe evolve intelligent life. This life will in turn create computers and simulate their own universes. Another possibility is that the computer we reside on is actually part of a life form which may or may not be what we would consider a deity. Yet another possibility is that we do indeed have real material bodies somewhere and they are currently "plugged into the Matrix" of this universe.

Of course in our reality there are rules that we all follow - the laws of physics. So if someone pounds a nail through my skull my ability to interact with the world is going to be seriously compromised. However, the only reason we find grey matter in someone's skull is so there is a plausible explanation for how that person is able to think. This reality is meant to be convincing as objective and physical, but the double slit experiment proves this is only an illusion.

What is reality? Data we get from our five senses. Is there any difference to us whether this data represents objective stuff -vs- pure information? Nope! There is no way to tell the difference.

 

[saffron park]

Question, if our thoughts are produced by chemical reactions in the brain, then how can we be arguing about this? Wouldn't that be like shaking up two cans of soda, watching them fizz, and asking which fizz was true?