Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Stilpo, Ion and Rita Carter

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2 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R]
     Full Idea: The nuts and bolts of thinking - holding ideas in mind and manipulating them - takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex.
     From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.312)
     A reaction: Keep this firmly in view! Imagine that the skull is transparent, and brain activity moves in waves of colour. Dualism would, in those circumstances, never have even occurred to anyone.
Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R]
     Full Idea: The pattern of brain activation during, say, a word retrieval task is usually similar enough among the dozen or so participants who typically take part in such studies for their scans to be overlaid and still show a clear pattern.
     From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17)
     A reaction: This doesn't surprise me, though it could be interpreted as supporting type-type identity, or as supporting functionalism. Armstrong and Lewis endorse a sort of reductive functionalism which would fit this observation.