Mind–No! Brain–Yes!
Evolution & the «Mind»
Simple organisms evolved to have a nervous system and then a central nervous system. These support fixed complex behaviours, both individual and social.
Mammals then evolved a neocortex that enabled individuals to learn new behaviours. Humans evolved and became utterly dominant because of their —what is often called their «mind».
Personal (mental) functioning must have evolved from sensori-motor reflexes, affective drives, and memory within the CNS to handle whole person (originally whole animal) interactions with the environment.
Through our functioning, we exert a degree of control over our physical, biological and mental worlds for our ends. It provides us with a competitive advantage through its primary rationale: to enable specific endeavours that improve the state of a person or group within its socio-physical environment.
Loose Formulations
It appears that the «mind» is to personal functioning, what the ether was to electromagnetic radiation: a distracting ungrounded popular concept.
To repeat—the «mind» is referred to as if it is “an instrument and container which enables personal functioning”—but this is just a metaphor.
The brain is the essential biological enabler of , and there does not seem to be a need for an unobservable enabler like «mind».
In practice, the term «mind» is used loosely and confusingly. Often it seems to be a substitute for cognition. But that excludes the notion of feeling. Yet few would want feelings to be excluded from the mind. Then what about creativity: which does not fit well under cognition nor feeling? Or volition which is neither creation nor cognition nor feeling?
The solution is simple: we must be far more systematic about . Then we can say what aspect of the «mind» is in our focus.
Using Imaginary Scenarios
Brain in a Vat
From his book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), Nozick writes:
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?
It might seem that there are lots of good reasons to plug in to avoid the suffering of life. But if you plugged in, then you would be dependent on others maintaining the equipment, and treating you as you want to be treated. Are human relations so predictable that this is a safe bet? Can you be sure that the funding of that neuroscience institution would never suffer cuts and have to turn you off? What about changes in politics and social customs? To ignore such practical issues is to enter a world of make-believe that has little to do with the realities of personal functioning. Perhaps tenured philosophers can live there, but the rest of us cannot.
Trolleyology
In studies claiming to shed light on ethics, neuroscientists measure brain functioning while posing the following to their subjects:
Imagine that you’re at the controls of a railway switch and there’s an out-of-control trolley coming. The tracks branch into two, one track that leads to a group of five people, and the other to one person. If you do nothing, the trolley will smash into the five people. But if you flip the switch, it’ll change tracks and strike the lone person. What do you do?
It is assumed that a subject's ethical functioning is being activated. But is the subject actually in an ethical situation? To answer that, you have to look at the endeavour. The over-arching endeavour here is participating in an experiment, and that is where issues of values, obligation and responsibility are located. By contrast, what consequences for you flow from the fantasy choice in this hypothetical scenario? Will society punish you? Will the courts get involved? Will you ruminate in a proud or guilty way about your choice? Might others disapprove or reject you as a result of your choice? No—none of the above. The neuroscientists are studying something akin to fantasy play, not ethical choice as it exists in genuine personal functioning.
Neurobiology
THEE maps all those categories, relevant to endeavour and intrinsic to personal functioning, that can be brought into awareness and explicated. Like the needs and pressures underlying the Domains, categories are fixed and universally present, even if their activation may be optional and affected by personal or cultural demands.
It is natural to assume that the Taxonomy has neurobiological roots. Because endeavours demand energy and involve the whole person, these roots would be expected to lie within affective neural circuitry of the brain. See below.
THEE does not (and logically cannot) specify any contents of those categories. Contents are highly variable and dependent on desired or forced choices of the «actual person in a specific situation». Contents are not necessarily affective apart from the affective charge carried by the category.
Saying, as above, that “the «mind» enables personal functioning” can only mean that during personal functioning, the brain somehow ensures:
- dynamic activation of THEE categories within Domain frameworks, and
- provision of viable content fitting the situation.
Observation reveals easy movement among and within taxonomic frameworks both spontaneously and deliberately, both consciously and unconsciously. The complexity of a single situation often entails use of the same category with many frames of reference.
We appear to have only limited control either of taxonomic dynamics or of emergence of useful content; but control can be enhanced by reflection and design.
- Continue to issues in developing the taxonomy.
Originally posted: 22-May-2015.