minds are brains
The Brain Revolution
Your brain is a mass of cells inside your skull and weighs around 1.4 kilograms, or 3 pounds.
Common sense insists that your mind, with all its amazing powers of thinking and feeling, cannot just
be your brain. The contrary belief that minds are souls is firmly held by the large majority of people
who belong to theistic religions, and by many philosophers since Plato and Descartes. They allow
that the mind may be closely associated with the body and especially with the brain, but insist that
mind and brain are not the same because they have different properties. Your brain has mass, consists
of matter and energy, and ceases to function when you die; whereas your soul weighs nothing, is not
subject to physical laws, and survives your death. Most people today are dualists, believing that a
person consists of both a spiritual mind and a physical body.
In contrast, most psychologists and neuroscientists are materialists and believe that minds are
brains: the mind is what the brain does. General acceptance of this view would amount to the most
radical conceptual revolution in the history of human thinking. Previously, the two most sweeping
scientific revolutions were Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemy's view that the earth is the center of the
universe, and Darwin's rejection of the religious view that humans were specially created by God.
According to modern astronomy, the earth is just another planet circling the sun, which is just one of
billions of stars in billions of galaxies. According to Darwin, humans are just another biological
species evolved through natural selection. The Brain Revolution now in progress is even more
threatening to humans' natural desire to think of ourselves as special, for it implies that our treasured
thoughts and feelings are just another biological process. Unsurprisingly, even some nonreligious
thinkers find disturbing the view that minds are brains, despite mounting evidence for such
identification. Not only immortality but also highly compelling doctrines of free will and moral
responsibility have been tied to the idea of minds as souls. The lure of dualism is powerful.
This chapter will argue that the hypothesis that minds are brains has far more explanatory power
than does its main competing hypothesis that minds are souls. Later I will also consider two
prominent materialist views that resist identifying minds with brains: the functionalist view that minds
can be processes in many different physical systems, and the embodiment view that minds are states
of the whole body. I think that neither of these views contradicts my main claim that human minds are
brains, which is, however, radically incompatible with the commonsense view that minds are not
physical objects.
Philosophers call the claim that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and
processes of the brain the identity theory. Mind-brain identification follows a long line of theoretical
identifications that have marked scientific progress: sounds are waves; combustion is chemical
combination with oxygen; water is H2O; heat is motion of molecules; lightning is electrical discharge;
light is electromagnetic energy; influenza is a viral infection; and so on. Each of these identities is
part of a larger theory that was accepted because it provided a better explanation of the relevant
evidence than did competing theories. Similarly, I will argue that the claim that minds are brains is
part of a rich theory that provides explanations for many mental phenomena, including perception,
memory, learning, inference, and emotion. Once this identification is established, we can consider the
radical implications for traditional philosophical questions about reality, knowledge, morality, and
personal meaning. Eventually, we will be able to learn from the neural processes that underlie love,
work, and play why they are such important realms of human life.
minds are brainsThe Brain RevolutionYour brain is a mass of cells inside your skull and weighs around 1.4 kilograms, or 3 pounds.Common sense insists that your mind, with all its amazing powers of thinking and feeling, cannot justbe your brain. The contrary belief that minds are souls is firmly held by the large majority of peoplewho belong to theistic religions, and by many philosophers since Plato and Descartes. They allowthat the mind may be closely associated with the body and especially with the brain, but insist thatmind and brain are not the same because they have different properties. Your brain has mass, consistsof matter and energy, and ceases to function when you die; whereas your soul weighs nothing, is notsubject to physical laws, and survives your death. Most people today are dualists, believing that aperson consists of both a spiritual mind and a physical body.In contrast, most psychologists and neuroscientists are materialists and believe that minds arebrains: the mind is what the brain does. General acceptance of this view would amount to the mostradical conceptual revolution in the history of human thinking. Previously, the two most sweepingscientific revolutions were Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemy's view that the earth is the center of theuniverse, and Darwin's rejection of the religious view that humans were specially created by God.According to modern astronomy, the earth is just another planet circling the sun, which is just one ofbillions of stars in billions of galaxies. According to Darwin, humans are just another biologicalspecies evolved through natural selection. The Brain Revolution now in progress is even morethreatening to humans' natural desire to think of ourselves as special, for it implies that our treasuredthoughts and feelings are just another biological process. Unsurprisingly, even some nonreligiousthinkers find disturbing the view that minds are brains, despite mounting evidence for suchidentification. Not only immortality but also highly compelling doctrines of free will and moralresponsibility have been tied to the idea of minds as souls. The lure of dualism is powerful.This chapter will argue that the hypothesis that minds are brains has far more explanatory powerthan does its main competing hypothesis that minds are souls. Later I will also consider twoprominent materialist views that resist identifying minds with brains: the functionalist view that mindscan be processes in many different physical systems, and the embodiment view that minds are statesof the whole body. I think that neither of these views contradicts my main claim that human minds arebrains, which is, however, radically incompatible with the commonsense view that minds are notphysical objects.Philosophers call the claim that states and processes of the mind are identical to states andprocesses of the brain the identity theory. Mind-brain identification follows a long line of theoreticalidentifications that have marked scientific progress: sounds are waves; combustion is chemicalcombination with oxygen; water is H2O; heat is motion of molecules; lightning is electrical discharge;light is electromagnetic energy; influenza is a viral infection; and so on. Each of these identities ispart of a larger theory that was accepted because it provided a better explanation of the relevantevidence than did competing theories. Similarly, I will argue that the claim that minds are brains ispart of a rich theory that provides explanations for many mental phenomena, including perception,memory, learning, inference, and emotion. Once this identification is established, we can consider theradical implications for traditional philosophical questions about reality, knowledge, morality, andpersonal meaning. Eventually, we will be able to learn from the neural processes that underlie love,work, and play why they are such important realms of human life.
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