The “brain in a vat” thought experiment is presented and refuted by appeal to the intuitiveness of what the author informally calls “the eye for an eye principle”, namely: Conscious mental states typically involved in sensory processes can conceivably successfully be brought about by direct stimulation of the brain, and in all such cases the utilized stimulus field will be in the relevant sense equivalent to the actual PNS or part of it thereof. In the second section, four (...) classic problems of Functionalism are given novel solutions based on the inclusion of peripheral nervous processes as constituents of mental states: The mad pain problem, the problem of pseudo-normal vision, the China-brain problem, and the triviality problem. (shrink)

This novel approach plunges the reader into the depths of our own brain.

The understanding of the interrelationship between brain and mind remains far from clear. It is well established that the brain's capacity to integrate information from numerous sources forms the basis for cognitive abilities. However, the core unresolved question is how information about the "objective" physical entities of the external world can be integrated, and how unifiedand coherent mental states (or Gestalts) can be established in the internal entities of distributed neuronal systems. The present paper offers a unified methodological (...) and conceptual basis for a possible mechanism of how the transient synchronization of brain operations may construct the unified and relatively stable neural states, which underlie mental states. It was shown that the sequence of metastable spatial EEG mosaics does exist and probably reflects the rapid stabilization periods of the interrelation of large neuron systems. At the EEG level this is reflected in the stabilization of quasi-stationary segments on corresponding channels. Within the introduced framework, physical brain processes and psychological processes are considered as two basic aspects of a single whole informational brain state. The relations between operational process of the brain, mental states and consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

Physics says that it cannot deal with the mind-brain problem, because it does not deal in subjectivities, and mind is subjective. However, biologists still claim to seek a material basis for subjective mental processes, which would thereby render them objective. Something is clearly wrong here. I claim that what is wrong is the adoption of too narrow a view of what constitutes objectivity, especially in identifying it with what a machine can do. I approach the problem in (...) the light of two cognate circumstances: the measurement problem in quantum physics, and the objectivity of standard mathematics, even though most of it is beyond the reach of machines. I argue that the only resolution to such problems is in the recognition that closed loops of causation are objective; i.e. legitimate objects of scientific scrutiny. These are explicitly forbidden in any machine or mechanism. A material system which contains such loops is called complex. Such complex systems thus must possess nonsimulable models; i.e. models which contain impredicativities or self-references which cannot be removed, or faithfully mapped into a single coherent syntactic time-frame. I consider a few of the consequences of the above, in the context of thus redrawing the boundary between subject and object. (shrink)

In this paper Popper formulates and discusses a new aspect of the theory of mind. This theory is partly based on his earlier developed interactionistic theory. It takes as its point of departure the observation that mind and physical forces have several properties in common, at least the following six: both are located, unextended, incorporeal, capable of acting on bodies, dependent upon body, capable of being influenced by bodies. Other properties such as intensity and extension in time may be added. (...) It is argued that a fuller understanding of the nature of forces is essential for the analysis of the mind-brain problem. The relative autonomy and indeterministic nature of mind is stressed. Indeterminism is treated in relation to a theorem of Hadamard. The computer theory of mind and the Turing test are criticized. Finally the evolution of mind is discussed. (shrink)

The prima facie heterogeneity between psychical and physical phenomena seems to be a serious objection to psychoneural identity thesis, according to many authors, from Leibniz to Popper. It is argued that this objection can be superseded by a different conception of consciousness. Consciousness, while being conscious of something, is always unconscious of itself . Consciousness of being conscious is not immediate, it involves another, second-order, conscious state. The appearance of mental states to second-order consciousness does not reveal their true nature. (...) Psychoneural identity can thus be considered a valid hypothesis. Related views of Kant, Freud, Shaffer, Bunge and others are considered. “Naive psychical realism” is criticised. Consciousness of mental events is considered as the result of the action of a cerebral system that observes the neural events hypothetically identical to mental events. The theory combines a materialist view with a due consideration of subjective experience. (shrink)

The problem of explaining the mind persists essentially unchanged today since the time of Plato and Aristotle. For the ancients, of course, it was not a question of the relation of mind to brain, though the question was fundamentally the same nonetheless. For Plato, the mind was conceived as distinct from the body and was posited in order to explain knowledge which transcends that available to the senses. For his successor, Aristotle, the mind was conceived as intimately related (...) to the body as form is related to substance. On this conception, the mind is an abstract property or condition of the body itself -. (shrink)

This paper argues that if a person's beliefs are idealized as a set of sentences (theoretical, observational, and mixed) then the device of Ramsey sentences provides a treatment, of the mind-brain problem, that has at least four noteworthy characteristics. First, sentences asserting correlations between one's own brain state and one's own "private" experiences are, on such treatment, reconstrued as neither causal, coreferential, nor as meaning postulates, but as clauses in an overall hypothesis (Ramsey sentence) whose only nonlogical (...) constants have "private" meanings. Second, sentences asserting psycho-physical correlations in general, or in other individuals, remain theoretical and susceptible to scientific reduction, though not prejudged to be so. Third, communication between persons having mutually exclusive, "private," observational vocabularies can be made intelligible. Fourth, it becomes possible in principle (though not necessary) that the world could ultimately be given a total description in a scientific language, $L_{\varnothing}$ , without mental primitives. However, such a language would be susceptible to interpretation by a given individual using a metalanguage whose primitives (not among those of $L_{\varnothing}$ ) were privately observational to that individual. His procedure in accomplishing such an interpretation would be to construct a Tarskian truth definition in a metalanguage $ML_{\varnothing}$ and then to incorporate it, by Ramsifying its descriptive terms, in his own overall Ramsey sentence. The physical language, $L_{\varnothing}$ , while not containing a person's primitives, would, of course, be able to define their physical correlates, thus providing a certain sort of mutual mirroring, and a certain sort of relativity. (shrink)

It is a commonplace of contemporary thought that the mind is located in the brain. Although there have been some challenges to this view, it has remained mainstream outside of a few specialized discussions, and plays a prominent role in a wide variety of philosophical arguments. It is further assumed that the source of this view is empirical. I argue it is not. Empirical discoveries show conclusively that the brain is the central organ of mental life, but do (...) not show that it is the mind's location . The data are just as compatible with a view where mentality is a human capacity on the model of circulation or respiration, with the brain playing the same kind of role as the heart or lungs. The standard conception of the brain as the locus of mind stems, I claim, from the imposition of a Cartesian conception of the self on a materialist ontology. Recognizing that the empirical data do not justify such a move casts doubt on the foundations of a number of philosophical discussions and raises new questions about the nature of the psychological subject. (shrink)

Until recently there has been little contact between the mind-brain debate in philosophy and the debate in psychiatry about the nature of mental illness. In this paper some of the analogies and disanalogies between the two debates are explored. It is noted in particular that the emphasis in modern philosophy of mind on the importance of the concept of action has been matched by a recent shift in the debate about mental illness from analyses of disease in terms of (...) failure of functioning to analyses of illness in terms of failure of action. The concept of action thus provides a natural conduit for two-way exchanges of ideas between philosophy and psychiatry. The potential fruitfulness of such exchanges is illustrated with an outline of the mutual heuristic significance of psychiatric work on delusions and philosophical accounts of Intentionality. (shrink)

Our ethical obligations to another being depend at least in part on that being’s capacity for a mental life. Our usual approach to inferring the mental state of another is to reason by analogy: If another being behaves as I do in a circumstance that engenders a certain mental state in me, I conclude that it has engendered the same mental state in him or her. Unfortunately, as philosophers have long noted, this analogy is fallible because behavior and mental states (...) are only contingently related. If the other person is acting, for example, we could draw the wrong conclusion about his or her mental state. In this article I consider another type of analogy that can be drawn between oneself and another to infer the mental state of the other, substituting brain activity for behavior. According to most current views of the mind–body problem, mental states and brain states are non-contingently related, and hence inferences drawn with the new analogy are not susceptible to the alternative interpretations that plague the behavioral analogy. The implications of this approach are explored in two cases for which behavior is particularly unhelpful as a guide to mental status: severely brain–damaged patients who are incapable of intentional communicative behavior, and nonhuman animals whose behavioral repertoires are different from ours and who lack language. (shrink)

: It is the aim of the following considerations to use Kantian epistemology to advance the current debate about the relation between mind and brain. First of all the naturalistic assumption that all mental phenomena are based on neuronal processes is called into question. Secondly it is shown that naturalism leads necessarily to an absurd constructivism that is very similar to Kant’s transcendental position, but which conflicts with naturalism’s empirical premise. In spite of the progress in brain research (...) Kant’s transcendental approach is still a promising attempt to treat philosophical problems, especially the problem about the relation between mind, brain and world. (shrink)

Since the early 1970s, despite popular opposition, to control the rapid growth of population the Chinese government has been carrying out the strictest and most comprehensive family planning policy in the world. In addition to contraceptive methods and sterilization, artificial abortionhas been used as an important measure of birth control under the policy. Many women have been required, persuaded, and even forced by the authorities to abort fetuses no matter how much they want to give birth.

The paper argues that the common notion that there is a gap between a physical scope, namely, brain processes, and something immaterial such as private experiences is an illusion provoked by the conceptual conflicts of our understanding. In order to overcome this illusion, it is necessary to clarify the foundations and implications of the uses of key concepts in the cognitive field.

Brain drain, the migration of skilled labor out of less-developed countries, is an especially acute problem in the medical sector. Countries in the global South face enormous shortages of health-care workers. The most direct solution, to train more doctors and nurses, does not solve the problem because so many of those who are trained move to the global North to take advantage of higher salaries and an improved standard of living. Because we live in a world with (...) porous boundaries and integrated economies, it is incumbent on us to think through questions that arise because of structural factors that benefit the already wealthy and developed economies at the expense of impoverished and struggling economies. Medical .. (shrink)

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) enable one to control peripheral ICT and robotic devices by processing brain activity on-line. The potential usefulness of BCI systems, initially demonstrated in rehabilitation medicine, is now being explored in education, entertainment, intensive workflow monitoring, security, and training. Ethical issues arising in connection with these investigations are triaged taking into account technological imminence and pervasiveness of BCI technologies. By focussing on imminent technological developments, ethical reflection is informatively grounded into realistic protocols of brain-to-computer (...) communication. In particular, it is argued that human-machine adaptation and shared control distinctively shape autonomy and responsibility issues in current BCI interaction environments. Novel personhood issues are identified and analyzed too. These notably concern (i) the “sub-personal” use of human beings in BCI-enabled cooperative problem solving, and (ii) the pro-active protection of personal identity which BCI rehabilitation therapies may afford, in the light of so-called motor theories of thinking, for the benefit of patients affected by severe motor disabilities. (shrink)

Translation of: Geist, Gehirn, Verhalten.

Ethical evaluation of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease is complicated by results that can be described as involving changes in the patient’s identity. The risk of becoming another person following surgery is alarming for patients, caregivers and clinicians alike. It is one of the most urgent conceptual and ethical problems facing deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease at this time. In our paper we take issue with this problem on two accounts. First, we (...) elucidate what is meant by “becoming another person” from a conceptual point of view. After critically discussing two broad approaches we concentrate on the notion of “individual identity” which centers on the idea of “core attitudes”. Subsequently we discuss several approaches to determine what distinguishes core attitudes from those that are more peripheral. We argue for a “foundational-function model” highlighting the importance of specific dependency relations between these attitudes. Our second aim is to comment on the possibility to empirically measure changes in individual identity and argue that many of the instruments now commonly used in selecting and monitoring DBS-patients are inappropriate for this purpose. Future research in this area is advised combining a conceptual and an empirical approach as a basis of sound ethical appraisal. (shrink)

On the first page of this very timely paper the author quotes Linda Gordon: “Birth control has always been primarily an issue of politics, not of technology.” This statement provides a theme for response to Jing-Bao Nie's arguments. In reading this paper, I found myself reminded of two of George Orwell's insights: When governments use euphemisms they are usually up to no good: “Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them” [e.g., (...) the use of “remedial measure” for abortion]. “A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up the details.” Sexuality and the sexual act can be a powerful tool of subversion and rebellion. One's sexuality can be the last line of defense against repression or authority. (shrink)

I much appreciate the honour of being invited to deliver the first Manson lecture, which, its founder has laid down, is to be devoted to the consideration of some subject of common interest to philosophy and medicine. I cannot think of anything which better fulfils that condition than the neurological approach to the problem of perception. The neurologist holds the bridge between body and mind. Every day he meets with examples of disordered perception and he learns from observing the (...) effects of lesions produced by disease, or by the physiologist's experiments, something of how the neural basis of perception is organized. It is possible to study perception as though this was largely irrelevant. How far that view is right will be for you to judge when I have finished. (shrink)