MIND AND

BRAIN

What is the connection?

Are the mind and Brain the same thing?

Science show a correlation when you
think about particular things or have
certain emotions, specific areas of brain
become active
If your thoughts are simply electrical
impulses then what is your
personality???

The Mind/Brain Problem Solutions

Materialist Solution
Identity
Eliminativist
Functionalist

Dualist Solution
Substance Dualism

Subjectivist
Monist Solution

Materialist Solutions

Materialists solution
Everything, including thoughts and

personality, is made of material/matter.

Nothing Non-material exists in reality
You mind and brain can be the same thing

Materialist Solutions

1.
2.
3.
4.

Based on 4 basic Principles

Science is the objective study of reality
Reality is objective
Every fact in reality can be known
The only things that exists are in
physical nature

Materialist Identity
Theory

All mental states are identical to brain

states.
Your thinking mental state is nothing but
a physical event in your brain.

Materialist Eliminativist Theory

Proposed by Canadian Philosophers

Patricia and Paul Churchland
Neuroscience will eventually explain all
mental states
All desires, emotions etc. will be
described by actions taking place within
the brain

Materialist Functionalist Theory

Most influential theory today

Mental states can be realized in various ways.
Mind is like software that is connected to the
Brain which is the hardware
Several important features define mental
states:
Their causal relations with other mental states
Their causal relations with bodily behaviour (output)
Their causal relations with the environment (input)

Functionalist continued

A functionalist sees a series of input and

output states
You get bit by a cat (input)
You feel pain and shock (internal states)
You scream and kick the cat (output)

Dualists solution

Science can not fully explain

consciousness.
Mind and Matter (brain) are 2 separate
things

Substance Dualism

Rene Descartes
Reality is composed of two fundamentally
different things: mental substances and
material substances
Human mind exists independent of the body
Mind interacts with the body sending and
receiving messages
Essential characteristic of mind is it is
thinking while the brain (a material thing) is
extended (takes up space)

Descartes

Reading 1641 Meditations on the

First Philosophy
Explain how/why Descartes shows the brain

is extended vs the mind is thinking.

Explain in your own words why he says the
statement below and why it proves he exists.

Subjectivist Solution

Science will never explain

consciousness because it constitutes an
independent dimension of reality
You can never gain a proper point of
view to study it.
Only you can study your own and that
cant be done objectively. Always put
your own ideas and experiences on it.

Monists Solution

All reality is composed of ONE thing or

type of thing
Spinoza believed it was God or Nature
The single thing expresses itself in a
multitude of ways in an infinite number
of dimensions
Mind and Brain are simply extensions of
the same thing.

Do non-human things have minds?

Dr. Joe Cruz

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

Daniel Dennett explains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDUVCcknlJY
&index=4&list=PLFJr3pJl27pIbRmgeu5eDkAV7r3i
9zk2O