Sufficient evidence has been presented in this chapter to justify using mind-brain identity as the
basis for the rest of the book's discussion of the nature of knowledge, reality, morality, and meaning.
Figure 3.3 shows the overall structure of the inference to the best explanation that minds are brains,
including the kinds of evidence that are increasingly being accounted for in terms of neural
mechanisms. The hypothesis that minds are brains competes with the hypothesis that minds are souls,
whose explanatory successes are few. The figure also shows competition between the higher-level
hypothesis that minds evolved naturally and the hypothesis that minds arise from divine creation. If
you are convinced by my argument that minds are brains, then proceed to Chapter 4. For the sake,
however, of philosophical skeptics about mind-brain identity, I will close this chapter with a
discussion of some of the most influential objections to it.