From Philosophy to Physics of the Mind: Teleological Transduction Theory

The mind-body problem has historically been a philosophical issue without empirical grounding. Natural science has recently begun studying the mind through neural correlates of consciousness, accumulating extensive data on neural processes linked to mental phenomena. However, an explanatory gap remains between mental and physical realms, leaving fundamental questions about the mind's nature, function, purpose, and mechanisms unanswered. This article reviews a theory that addresses these questions from a physical perspective, elucidating the physical processes and mechanisms that generate mental phenomena in the brain. The theory aims to move neuroscience beyond correlational descriptions toward explaining the physical causes of the mind, potentially resolving the mind-body problem.

Study at a glance

Abstract

For millennia, the mind-body problem remained a philosophical issue without an empirical basis and practical implications. In recent decades, natural science has finally started to treat the mind as an object of research. The main approach was to study the ‘neural correlates of consciousness’. Since then, we have accumulated a vast amount of data on neural processes that appear to correlate with observed mental phenomena. However, the explanatory gap between mental and physical is not covered, as the main questions about the mind remain unanswered. What is the mind? What does it do? Why does it do it? How does it do it? The article reviews a theory that aims to answer these phenomenological, functional, teleological, and causal questions from the physical perspective. The theory elucidates physical processes and mechanisms that give rise to mental phenomena in the brain, thus enabling neuroscience to progress from correlational descriptions to an explanation of the physical causes of the mind and solve the mind-body problem.