Relationship Between the Mind and the Brain - Literature review Example

Due: Relationship Between the Mind and the Brain Introduction Most of the body’s functions such as, thinking, emotions, memories and so forth are controlled by the brain. It serves as a central nervous system in the human body. The mind is the intellect/consciousness that originates in the human brain and manifests itself in emotions, thoughts, perceptions and so forth. This means that the brain is the key interpreter of the mind’s content. Analytic philosophy: relation between mental and brain events. Numerous speculations have been advanced to clarify the relationship between what we call your mind and your brain. They incorporate Jackson and Nagels journey to oppose recognizing what we call mental occasions with brain occasions, for distinctive reasons, while body problem by trying to answer the following questions; Is the human mind part of the brain or is the brain part of the mind? J.J.C. Savvy takes the restricting view on the same. Many theories have tried to solve the mind/ If they exist independently, how do they interact? Between the mind and the brain, which of the two is in charge? Mental events are those particular occurrences of things going on in the human mind that make up the conscious mind of a person and can be manipulated by the mental process. They are those private conversations going on inside the human head. The following scenario illustrates this point well; A woman window shopping in the mall sees and recognizes an old friend. Seeing and recognizing the old friend is an occurrence that is going on in the woman’s mind: perception. It is a mental event because it is happening in the woman’s mind. It’s only the individual that has access to the mind, other individuals can only try and interpret. In philosophy, the critical analysis on the relationship between the brain and mind is known the mind body problem. The following schools of thought have tried to solve the mind body problem; Dualism: this school of thought subscribes to the belief that the mind and brain exist independently of each other. Other dualists deny the fact that the mind is a part of the brain. This is because the mind and brain don’t share same qualities. The famous philosopher Rene Descartes, who is associated with dualism, believed that the mind is not a tangible substance because it lacks physical attributes (substance dualists). This is because the mind originates from inside the brain, and this makes the brain a tangible solid form of the mind (property dualists). However, they comprise of different properties. Mental events have a subjective quality because they possess raw feelings. In the article, “what is it like to be a bat?” Thomas Nagel used a bat as an example to illustrate the fact that even if human beings have all the knowledge on how bats use their abilities it doesn’t mean that they will be able to view the environment and the world at large from a bat’s point of view. The knowledge they have limits them to know how it feels like to be a bat. (Nagel 98) Thomas Nagel also opines that the mind is private because it’s only the individual that has access to the mind, other individuals can only try and interpret. Third parties will not know the individual’s exact intellect unless they make inferences based on his actions/behavior. Mental events are known by an individual without inference because the individual knows immediately. For instance, if a person is hungry, he/she will know the feeling of hunger without inference, others will know that the person is feeling hungry by trying to interpret his actions-verbal/non-verbal. Brain events such as talking are public because other individuals can observe and understand them. Since mental events are private to individual minds whereas brain events are not, mental events cannot be the same as brain events. Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument refuted claims that consciousness can be deduced from the physical truth. He used the example of Mary who lived in a black and white room; this meant that she had no color experiences. When she left the room, she saw a red tomato and learnt new truths about colors. (Jackson 186). According to him, physicalism is false because Mary would have learnt all the physical truths about human color vision before she left the room. This is because upon leaving the room she learnt something new on what it’s like to see colors.He argues that not all facts are physical facts because even if we know all the physical facts about love, we will not know beforehand what it is like to be in love. An individual who is not privy to the physical facts about love would learn new facts when they learn what it means to be in love. However, he later embraced the physicalism school of thought that all facts are physical facts. He rejected his knowledge argument and noted that Mary did not obtain new factual knowledge of color; she obtained the ability of seeing colors. He believed that she didn’t discover any new knowledge; the color vision come from her brain and enabled her to see red. Jackson’s critics argue that Mary gained something else as opposed to new knowledge. Mary only obtained the ability to experience what it felt like seeing colors as opposed to the knowledge of colors; she could recognize colors. The knowledge she acquired after leaving the room was acquaintance knowledge because she had factual knowledge about colors. The writer opines that since Mary was only exposed to monochromic surroundings, she would not have experience with other colors. This is because she could only see in black and white. Materialism: materialists believe that the mind and brain is one and the same thing. This theory opposes the dualistic approach. Materialism is related to monism and physicalism. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) opined that everything including the thought process and the state of mind can be explained by matter in motion. According to him, thoughts can be explained as the matter in motion of the brain. This school of thought asserts that the mind is the function of the brain. According to materialists, the mind is just the brain. A human being is the mind itself because the mind starts operating whenever there is there is intellect of individuality. The mind originates from inside the brain and this makes the brain a tangible form of the mind. Materialist philosophers such as J.J.C. Smart (1959) (who subscribe to the mind/brain identity theory) assert that brain states are mental states; they identify the mind with the brain. Ullin Place (1956) describes the mind as patterns of some brain activity. He likened the identity of the brain and mind processes to the same way science identifies lightning with electrical discharge. In his article, sensations and brain processes (1959) J.J.C identifies himself with Place’s theory and seeks to strengthen it. He argues that although mental and brain events mean different things, they refer to the same physical occurrence. Mental events such as thoughts, perception and so forth are the same with some physical event of the brain. He argued his opinion by saying: Maybe this is because I have not thought it out sufficiently, but it does seem to me, as though, when a person says, ‘I have an after image,’ he is making a genuine report, and that when he says ‘I have pain,’ he is doing more than ‘replace pain-behavior,’ and that ‘this more,’ is not just to say that he is in distress. I am not so sure, however, that to admit this is to admit that there are nonphysical correlates of brain processes. Why not sensations just be brain processes of a certain sort? (Smart pp.61-62) According to smart all an individual has to do in order to understand the mind is to understand how the brain operates. Mental events are made up of brain behavior. Place and Smart argue that experiencing a sensation like itchiness or pain is just being in a certain brain state. When an individual complains of a stomachache, he/she is trying to say that something is going on within him/her. This scenario makes both the mental and brain states identical. Smart argues that the similarity between the mind and brain events is empirical because upon discovery of science it was established that these two states which appeared to be different at first are actually identical. Mental events are just brain activities. Critics argue that identifying the mind with certain brain events is a very narrow argument because it implies that those living things without brains don’t have mental events. Saul Kripke refutes Smart’s brain/mind identity theory. He argues that claims of identity between mental and brains are false. The fact that materialists claim that that the mind and brain cannot exist without the other implies that they cannot be identical. They only complement each other. According to him, proving the fact that neither brain states nor mental states could exist without the other is a very hard, if not an impossible task. Idealism: theorists who subscribe to this school of thought assert that it’s only the mental state/ soul that exist because matter doesn’t exist. Idealism developed from the argument that only ideas in the mind exist. There is nothing outside and separate from the mental state because the universe is an illusion/ product of the mental process. Bishop George Berkeley (1710) who was a strong idealist claimed in his master argument that the mind is controlled by the Supreme Being (God); He is the only mental substance. He argued that there are no material substances because only ideas in the mind existed. Idealism is the argument that human beings think only in terms of the mind and so the universe must operate the same way. Critics argue that this is a wrong because it reduces everything in the universe to human terms yet other living organisms such as animals also exist. The world is not purely a construction of the mental state. They further argue that idealists tend to forget the fact that the form (part of what things are) cannot exist without it being part and parcel of matter: matter and form are inseparable. The space that surrounds is not merely the universe is not merely ideas of human minds. The writer subscribes to the materialism school of thought. A human being is the mind itself because the mind starts operating whenever there is there is intellect of individuality. The mind originates from inside the brain and this makes the brain a tangible form of the mind. In my view, the brain and mind are inseparable if the brain is not there then the mind will also not be there. This is because when the mind is altered directly, the intellect is also affected. The mind also shapes the brain because what the brain only does is to reflect what is going on in the human mind. The writer further opines that the dualism and idealism school of thoughts are outdated. This is because some of the philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Berkeley lived many centuries ago. During their time science was not advanced, however, in modern times the numerous technological advancements have enabled philosophers like J.J.C Smart to discover that mental and brain states which were previously deemed to exist independently are in fact the same thing. Frank Jackson and Thomas Nagel’s views on the topic are quite outdated. Conclusion Although many philosophers have tried to solve the mind/body problem, it is best to concede that the inquiry of how the mind and the brain get connected stays something of a secret. Works cited Berkeley, George. A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge. JB Lippincott & Company, 1878. Print. Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?” The philosophical review (1974): 435-450.Web. Smart, J.J.C. “Sensations and brain processes.” The Philosophical Review (1959): 141-156.Web. Read More