The Identity of Minds and the Mental States - Essay Example

?The Identity of Minds and Mental s By: of Introduction “Of all the mysteries in the world, none is more puzzling than the mind” (Poundstone, 1990, p. 222). The purpose of this paper is to explore a concept that has been extensively mystified, i.e. the human mind. This paper tackles the question on, what constitutes the identity of the mind? What distinguishes mental phenomena from non-mental ones? Or what distinguishes mental states such as beliefs and desires from physical objects such as tables and chairs? There are two important movements that provide an answer to these questions, i.e. behaviorism and identity theory. It is in my contention that despite the enigma of the human mind, behaviorism and the identity theory, both attempt to offer a rational explanation for the nature and identity of mental phenomena. Behaviorism Behaviorism is generally regarded as the view that reduces mental states to the physical states of the body, specifically to that of the body’s behaviors. Thus, “behaviorists have argued that mental states and processes are really nothing more than behavior or dispositions” (Heil, 1993, p.174). A behavior is understood here as an external physical movement of the body, and thus includes verbal behavior, but excludes brain activities. Moreover, behavior is either actual or dispositional. Accordingly, all mental states are believed to be behavioral dispositions, which may or may not be actualized. As such, even if there is no actual behavior that corresponds to a mental expression, the claim of behaviorism holds because it necessarily has a corresponding behavioral disposition. So to have a mental state is thus to behave or to be disposed to behave in a certain way. For instance, to be in pain is to exhibit behaviors such as crying, wincing, saying “ouch,” etc. Two versions of behaviorism are often distinguished from one another, namely, logical or analytical behaviorism and methodological behaviorism. Kim (1998, pp.24-46) however, adds another version, that is, ontological behaviorism. Logical behaviorism is called analytical because it expresses the thesis of behaviorism in terms of the logical relation between mental terms and behavioral terms. Accordingly, mental terms and behavioral terms are identical insofar that they refer to the same behavioral phenomena. Expressions containing mental terms such as “I desire to finish school”, “I am in pain”, and “I believe that it is going to rain,” are accordingly, logically equivalent to, or reducible to some expressions containing only behavioral terms such as “I will attend my classes regularly,” “I am inclined to cry,” and “I will bring my umbrella when I get out of the house.” In short, in this view, mental terms are defined in terms of behaviors. It is this notion of behaviorism that will be of concern to us. Logical behaviorism is often attributed to the view of the mind that Gilbert Ryle (1965) advanced as an alternative to Cartesian dualism, which he refers to as the ghost-in-the machine doctrine. Ryle argues that this doctrine commits a fallacy called the category mistake, i.e. when one wrongly takes something as belonging to a certain category that it does not belong to. The famous example given by Ryle is when someone understands the word “university” as referring to a particular entity in the very same way that the words “buildings”, “members of the faculty”, “students”, and the like, refer to particular entities. In the same way, so argues Ryle, Descartes mistakes the word “mind” as belonging to the same category as the word “body”, and hence believes that the word “mind” refers to an entity of some kind in the same way that the word “body” does. Though “mind” and “body” refer to different kinds of entities, the fact that they do refer to entities puts them in the same category. Logical behaviorism, as noted above, is the view that mental states are nothing but behaviors. This view lends itself to two possible interpretations, which can be expressed in the following manner: first, that there really are no mental states to which mental terms are normally understood to refer to. And second that there are mental states to which mental terms are normally understood to refer to. In both cases, mental terms actually do not refer to mental states but to rather, to behaviors. But what is so attractive with logical behaviorism? According to Heil, it “allows creatures with very different biologies to be in the same mental states” (1993, p.174). Thus, “it enables us to see how mental descriptions of intelligent creatures depend on those creatures’ physical constitution, while not reducing them to purely physical descriptions” (1993, p.175). Identity Theory Whereas the behaviorist defines mental states in terms of behaviors, the identity theorist “holds that mental states and physical states are identical: Mental things are in fact nothing but physical things” (Heil, 1993, p.173). In short, identity theory contends that the mind is nothing but the brain. Similarly, it advocates that mental states are nothing but neural states of the brain. Smart and Feigl advanced this theory in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Under this view, to be in pain for instance, is for the C-fibers in the brain to be stimulated. The terms “pain” and “C-fiber stimulation” are here regarded as identical in the sense that both terms refer to one and the same thing: the C-fiber stimulation. As such, pain is not something that is over and above the C-fiber stimulation; it is itself the C-fiber stimulation. As Smart (1991, p.171) writes: “When I say that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an electric discharge. I am using “is” in the sense of strict identity. Just as in the proposition “7 is identical with the smallest prime number greater than 5””. Adherents of this view are positive that in the future, science would be able to establish the reduction of all other mental states to brain states in the same way that science had in the past established that water is H2O. As the term “water” is merely the unscientific equivalent of the scientific term “H20” respectively, so is the term “mind” to the term “brain”, i.e. the term “mind” is merely the unscientific equivalent of the scientific term “brain”. The primary motivation behind this theory is a principle called “Occam’s Razor” according to which one ought not to multiply entities beyond what is necessary. Accordingly, Smart (1991, p.169) argues that the belief in the existence of mental states as something over and above brain states is an unnecessary multiplication of entities and hence a dispensable obstacle toward a completely scientific explanation of human thought and behavior. Furthermore, two types of identity theories are often distinguished, namely, the type identity theory and the token identity theory. This distinction is a result of a difficulty that the identity theory encounters, which concerns how to account for the fact that non-human organisms, such as animals, whose brain structures differ from humans, can also have mental states. If, for instance, pain is nothing but C-fiber excitation, what about organisms that do not have C-fibers in their brains but which nevertheless exhibit pain behaviors that more or less resemble ours? The identity theorist can answer in the affirmative but this is tantamount to abandoning their thesis that mental states are nothing but brain states. Or they can stick with their thesis and thus answer in the negative, but to do so is to embrace the so-called neuronal or human chauvinism, which unjustly limits mentality to humans or to organisms that have C-fibers in their brains. The kind of “identity” in identity theory that is susceptible to this difficulty is type identity theory, which is the kind of identity theory assumed in our discussion of this theory thus far. Identity theorists, however, have found a way out of this difficulty, and this is to posit another version of their thesis, i.e. the token identity theory. The type-token distinction is better understood as referring to a property-instantiation distinction. The type refers to the property, while the token refers to the instantiation of the property. For instance, the property-white is instantiated by white cars, white ribbons, and white flowers. These objects are different instantiations or tokens of the same property or type, i.e. white. Thus, according to type identity theory, pain and C-fiber excitation are types or properties, while according to token identity theory, they are tokens or instantiations of certain types or properties. If two types are the same, then all their tokens must be the same in all possible situations. If the color red is identical with wavelength X, then all instantiations of the color red will be identical with all instantiations of wavelength X. Likewise, if pain and C-fiber stimulation are properties and are regarded as identical then all their instantiations, that is, particular pains and particular C-fiber stimulations, would be identical. This implies that only those organisms that have C-fibers in their brains can have pains. On the other hand, if two tokens are identical, the types that they instantiate need not be identical. Consequently, there will be other tokens of the same properties that will not be identical. For instance, if what someone calls “the blue car” happens to be identical with what I call “the expensive car”, then there will be instances where a blue car will not be an expensive car. And this is because the properties blue and expensive are not identical. Likewise, if pain and C-fiber stimulation are regarded as particulars or tokens that are identical, then there will be instances where there is pain but there is no C-fiber stimulation. What this further means is that an organism that does not have C-fibers in its brain can possibly have pains. Thus, for the type identity theory, the identification of pain and C-fiber excitation necessarily implies that only organisms that have C-fibers can have pains, while for the token identity theory such an identity does not rule out the possibility that organisms that do not have C-fibers can also have pains. Token identity theory therefore accommodates the possibility that non-humans can have mental states while maintaining that for humans their mental states are identical with their brain states. The problem with token identity theory, however, is that it does not prevent the possibility that the properties instantiated by particular brain states are non-physical. For instance, the identity of pains and C-fiber excitations taken as tokens do not rule out the possibility that particular pains are instantiations of mental properties that are not identical with the physical properties instantiated by particular C-fiber excitations. As such, token identity theory can lead to property dualism of the metaphysical kind, thereby making it a weak materialist view (Kim 1998, pp. 58-62). Conclusion The theories I have espoused in this paper are theories that reduce mental phenomena to that of physical phenomena. I discussed two views, i.e. behaviorism and identity theory. The former claims that mental states can be explained in terms of behaviors. While the latter claims that mental states are brain states. Both theories attempt to materialize the mind to some thing, which is tangible such as the brain. Whether this view of the mind is correct is something we cannot know for sure at the present. However, the future is altogether something else. References Crane, T., 1995. The mechanical mind. London: Penguin Books Ltd. Fodor, J., 1979. The language of thought. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Fodor, J., 1980. Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. In: D. Rosenthal, ed. 1991. 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