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Full Idea
It seems not improbable that if we had sufficient knowledge we could infer the state of a man's mind from the state of his brain, or the state of his brain from the state of his mind.
Gist of Idea
We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.131)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'Mysticism and Logic' [Unwin 1989], p.131
A Reaction
This strikes me as being a very good summary of the claim that mind is reducible to brain, which is the essence of physicalism. Had he been born a little later, Russell would have taken a harder line with physicalism.
| 7545 | Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed [Russell] |
| 7546 | A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell] |
| 7547 | Matter requires a division into time-corpuscles as well as space-corpuscles [Russell] |
| 7548 | Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell] |
| 7549 | If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell] |
| 7550 | We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell] |
| 7551 | Matter is a logical construction [Russell] |
| 7552 | Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell] |
| 7553 | Sense-data are purely physical [Russell] |