Mind and Brain—How do they Relate?
Mark Solms, Oliver Hugh Turnbull
April 24, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9780429481239-2 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that cognitive science has recast the mind-body problem as the problem of consciousness, and proposes that the mind is a higher level of organization of neurons, analogous to water as an organized collection of atoms. Mental functions are said to arise from complex, distributed brain systems that form a functional unity. |
Abstract
This chapter examines the relationship between mind and brain in general. It suggests that the classical mind-body problem has been redefined by cognitive scientists as the problem of consciousness. The mind-body problem is a philosophical conundrum that dates back to classical antiquity, and probably beyond. David Chalmers—one of the philosophers participating in the interdisciplinary field of “cognitive science”—argues that one aspect of the mind-body problem is “easy” and the other “hard.” The mind can thus be regarded as a higher level of organization of neurons, just as water is a higher level of organization of its constituent atoms. The individual cells of the brain are not uniquely “mental,” yet when they are connected up together, each one contributes something to something else that somehow becomes the mind. The brain, like the mind, formed a functional unity. Mental functions, too, are the products of complex systems, the component parts of which may be distributed throughout the structures of the brain.