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17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind

[mind is entirely physical in composition]

37 ideas
All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
     Full Idea: Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
     From: Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
     A reaction: If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.
Democritus says the soul is the body, and thinking is thus the mixture of the body [Democritus, by Theophrastus]
     Full Idea: Democritus explains thinking by the mixture of the body, which is surely in accordance with his reasoning, since he makes the soul the body.
     From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A135) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 58
     A reaction: I agree with Democritus.
The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: We should not enquire whether the soul and the body are one thing, any more than whether the wax and its imprint are, or in general whether the matter of each thing is one with that of which it is the matter.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b05)
     A reaction: This is his hylomorphist view of objects, so that the soul is the 'form' which bestows identity (and power) on the matter of which it is made. This remark is thoroughly physicalist.
The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes]
     Full Idea: Nothing incorporeal shares an experience with a body …but the soul suffers with the body when it is ill and when it is cut, and the body suffers with the soul - when the soul is ashamed the body turns red, and pale when the soul is frightened.
     From: Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]), quoted by Nemesius - De Natura Hominis 2
     A reaction: Aha - my favourite example of the corporeal nature of the mind - blushing! It is the conscious content of the thought which brings blood to the cheeks.
The mind moves limbs, wakes the body up, changes facial expressions, which involve touch [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: Mind and spirit are both composed of matter, as we see them propelling limbs, rousing the body from sleep, changing the expression of the face, and guiding the whole man - activities which clearly involves touch, which involves matter.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.164)
     A reaction: This is the inverse of Descartes' interaction problem, and strikes me as a straightforward common sense truth. However, if you believe in spiritual gods, this gives you a model for the interaction (however mysterious) of matter and spirit.
Lions, foxes and deer have distinct characters because their minds share in their bodies [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: Why are lions ferocious, foxes crafty, and deer timid? It can only be because the mind always shares in the specific growth of the body according to its seed and breed. If it were immortal and reincarnated, living things would have jumbled characters.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.743)
     A reaction: A nice argument which I have not encountered in modern times. Of course, even Descartes admits that the mind is intermingled with the body, but it seems that the essential character of a mind is dictated by the body.
The brain contains memory and reason, and is the source of sensation and decision [Galen]
     Full Idea: The brain is the principal organ of the psychical members. For within the brain is seated memory, reason and intellect, and from the brain is distributed the power, sensation and voluntary motion.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170]), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 1
     A reaction: [not sure of ref] Interesting that he assigns the whole of mind to the brain, and not just some aspect of it. He had done experiments. Understanding the role of the brain was amazingly slow. Impeded by religion, I guess.
Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Blasius argued that prime matter is the subject of all our intellectual and moral states. This implies that such states cannot exist apart from the body, which seems to imply further that the soul itself cannot exist apart from the body.
     From: report of Blasius of Parma (Les quaestiones de anima (lectures on the soul) [1385], I.8 p.65) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 06.3
     A reaction: It seems that, under pressure, Blasius recanted this view in lectures given eleven years later.
Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: Sense in the sentient, can be nothing else but motion in some of the internal parts of the sentient; and the parts so moved are parts of the organs of sense.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (De Corpore (Elements, First Section) [1655], 3.15.02)
     A reaction: Amazingly bold for the time, and presumably influenced by Lucretius. I am sympathetic, but to suggest that sensation is nothing more sounds a bit like a category mistake. Has he grasped that the brain is involved?
Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: Conceptions and apparitions are nothing really, but motion in some internal substance of the head.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.VII.1)
     A reaction: Note that he carefully covers both thought in concepts and thought in images, and also that he is not saying that thought is the substance, but that it is a 'motion'. This strikes me as an excellent word, and I think Hobbes is right.
The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
     Full Idea: Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain.
     From: Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
     A reaction: Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out.
Mind and body are the same thing, sometimes seen as thought, and sometimes as extension [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: The idea of body and body, that is, mind and body, are one and the same individual conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 21)
     A reaction: This is an appealingly modern view, but a bit glib. Phenomenologically, the mind seen as thought and the body seen as extension are about as wildly different as it is possible to be. This needs explanation.
Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie]
     Full Idea: Let us conclude boldly that man is a machine and that there is in the whole universe only one diversely modified substance.
     From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.39)
     A reaction: What courage it must have taken to write what now seems a perfectly acceptable and normal view. One day there should be a collective monument to Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, La Mettrie and Hume, who thought so boldly.
The seat of the soul is where our inner and outer worlds interpenetrate [Novalis]
     Full Idea: The seat of the soul is the point where the inner and the outer worlds touch. Wherever they penetrate each other - it is there at every point of penetration.
     From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 020)
     A reaction: I surmise that Spinoza's dual-aspect monism is behind this interesting remark. See the related idea from Schopenhauer.
Why shouldn't we say brain depends on mind? Better explanation! [Ayer]
     Full Idea: If mind and brain exactly correspond we have as good ground for saying the brain depends on the mind as the other way round; if predominance is given to the brain, the reason is that it fits into a wider explanatory system.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.D)
     A reaction: A small but significant point. If an 'identity' theory is to be developed, then this step in the argument has to be justified. It is tempting here to move to the eliminativist view, because we no longer have to worry about a 'direction of priority'.
The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: Granted the contingency of the laws of nature, the identification of dispositions with their categorical bases can be contingent only.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi)
     A reaction: Personally I am not willing to grant the contingency of the laws of nature, but I suppose Armstrong is right about identity if he is right about laws. Presumably an identity could happen to be invariant across possible worlds, without being necessary.
The pattern of molecules in the sea is much more complex than the complexity of brain neurons [Searle]
     Full Idea: The pattern of molecules in the ocean is vastly more complex than any pattern of neurons in my brain.
     From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.6)
     A reaction: A nice warning for anyone foolish enough to pin their explanatory hopes simply on 'complexity', but we would not be so foolish. A subtler account of complexity (e.g. by Edelman and Tononi) might make brains much more complex than oceans.
Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong on Kripke]
     Full Idea: In his attempted disproof of materialism about the mind, Kripke assumes that the physical description is a rigid designator, but this seems to be begging the question against the causal theory, which says the description is non-rigid.
     From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by David M. Armstrong - Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' p.xiv
     A reaction: A crucial part of this is that Armstrong believes that the laws of nature are contingent, and hence mind-brain identity has to be. Personally I incline to say that the identity is rigid, but that Kripke is still wrong.
In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson]
     Full Idea: Physicalism is associated with various asymmetry doctrines, most famously with the idea that the psychological depends in some sense on the physical, and not the other way around.
     From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Sounds okay to me. Shadows depend on objects, and not the other way round. It might suggest properties depending on substances (or bare particulars), but I prefer the dependence of processes on mechanisms (waterfalls on liquid water).
Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim]
     Full Idea: Token physicalism (as opposed to type physicalism) is a weak doctrine which simply says that any event or occurrence with a mental property has some physical property or other. It is not committed to reductionism.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 61)
     A reaction: Sounds nice, but it seems incoherent to me. How can something have a physical property if it isn't physical? Try 'it isn't coloured, but has colour properties', or 'not a square, but with square properties'. 'Not divine, but divine properties' maybe.
The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis]
     Full Idea: The word 'pain' is a non-rigid designator; it is a contingent matter what state the concept and the word apply to. (Note: so the sort of theory Kripke argues against is not what we propose).
     From: David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III)
     A reaction: I like the view that a given quale is necessarily identical to a given mental state, but that many mental states might occupy a given behavioural role. The smell of roses might occupy the behavioural role of pain. Frog pain isn't quite like ours.
Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Human pain might be one thing. Martian pain might be something else.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.420)
     A reaction: A key suggestion in support of type-type physicalism, and against the multiple realisability objection to the identity theory
Psychophysical identity implies the possibility of idealism or panpsychism [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Psychophysical identity is a two-way street: if all mental properties are physical, then some physical properties are mental; but then all physical properties might be mental, or every property of everything might be both physical and mental.
     From: David Lewis (New work for a theory of universals [1983], 'Min Mat')
     A reaction: I suspect that this is the thought that has impressed Galen Strawson. The whole story seems to include the existence of 'mental properties' as a distinct category. This line of thought strikes me as a serious misunderstanding.
There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett]
     Full Idea: There is no more fear or anger in adrenaline than there is silliness in a bottle of whiskey.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but a nice rhetorical point against absurd claims about identity and reduction and elimination. We may say that there is no fear without adrenaline, and no adrenaline in a live brain without fear.
Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor]
     Full Idea: "Type" physicalism is supposed, by general consensus, to be stronger than "token" physicalism; stronger, that is, than the mere claim that all mental states are necessarily physically instantiated.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: Such philosopher's terminology always seems cut-and-dried, until you ask exactly what is identical to what. The word 'type' is a very broad concept. Are trees the same type of thing as roses? A thought always requires the same 'type' of brain event?
Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Type physicalism is, roughly, the doctrine that psychological kinds are identical to neurological kinds.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], App A n.1)
     A reaction: This gets my general support, leaving open the nature of 'kinds'. Presumably the identity is strict, as in 'Hesperus is identical to Phosphorus'. It seems unlikely that if you and I think the 'same' thought, that we have strictly identical brain states.
Knowing what it is like to be something only involves being (physically) that thing [Papineau]
     Full Idea: Physicalism does not deny that there are conscious experiences, nor that 'it is like something to have them'. The claim is only that this is nothing different from what it is to be a physical system of the relevant kind.
     From: David Papineau (Philosophical Naturalism [1993], 4.2)
     A reaction: The implication is that no physicalist is an extreme eliminativist about consciousness, which seems to be correct. We all concede that weather exists, but have a reductive view of it. The key question is whether mind is reducible to physics.
The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau]
     Full Idea: Without the completeness of physics, there is no compelling reason to identify the mind with the brain.
     From: David Papineau (Thinking about Consciousness [2002], App 7)
     A reaction: Papineau says the completeness of physics was accepted from the 1950s. Why were Epicurus and Hobbes physicalists? Do we have a circularity here? How do you establish the completeness of physics, without asserting mind to be physical?
Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan]
     Full Idea: 'Neuron' may be understood as a physiological term or a functional term, so even the Identity Theorist is a Functionalist - one who locates mental entities at a very low level of abstraction.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: This is a striking observation, and somewhat inclines me to switch from identity theory to functionalism. If you ask what is the correct level of abstraction, Lycan's teleological-homuncular version refers you to all the levels.
Physicalism cannot allow internal intentional objects, as brain states can't be 'about' anything [Robinson,H]
     Full Idea: It is generally conceded by reductive physicalists that a state of the brain cannot be intrinsically about anything, for intentionality is not an intrinsic property of anything, so there can be no internal objects for a physicalist.
     From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.4)
     A reaction: Perhaps it is best to say that 'aboutness' is not a property of physics. We may say that a brain state 'represents' something, because the something caused the brain state, but representations have to be recognised
Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane]
     Full Idea: If causation concerns events, then we have an identity theory of mental and physical events (particulars) [Davidson]. If causation is by properties, then it is mental and physical properties which are identical [Lewis and Armstrong].
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14)
     A reaction: Events are tokens, and properties are types. Tricky. Events are dynamic, but properties can be static.
Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane]
     Full Idea: Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution.
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.19)
     A reaction: Certainly if the physical is seen as just a pile of atoms, it is hard to see how they could ever think (see idea 1909).
Physicalists must believe in narrow content (because thoughts are merely the brain states) [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Physicalists will, it seems, be committed to the notion of narrow content, because if a person and their counterpart are neurological duplicates, they must exemplify the same mental state types, and thus possess beliefs with the same contents.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4)
     A reaction: Very important. How many philosophers currently believe in both wide content and reductive physicalism? However, if content is physical brain-plus-environment, we might reply that the whole package must be identical for same content. Cf Idea 7884!
Identity theory says consciousness is an abstraction: a state, event, process or property [Polger]
     Full Idea: Identity theories locate consciousness at a certain order of abstraction, typically among neurophysiological states, events, processes, or properties.
     From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.7.6)
     A reaction: I increasingly think that processes are the answer. My new analogy for the mind is a waterfall: its physical ontology is simple, it only exists because there is a sustained process, and it is far too complex to predict individual droplet outcomes.
Traditional ideas of the mind were weakened in the 1950s by mind-influencing drugs [Watson]
     Full Idea: One development in particular in the 1950s helped to discredit the traditional concept of the mind. This was medical drugs that influenced the workings of the brain.
     From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Intro')
     A reaction: This explains Ryle's 1949 book, and the Australian physicalists emerging in the late 1950s. Philosophers don't grasp how their subject is responsive to other areas of human knowledge. Of course, opium had always done this.
Body-type seems to affect a mind's cognition and conceptual scheme [Margolis/Laurence]
     Full Idea: It is claimed, on the basis of empirical research, that the type of body that an organism has profoundly affects it cognitive operations and the way it conceptualises the world. We can't assume that human minds could inhere in wildly different body types.
     From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 3.2)
     A reaction: Sounds interesting. They cite Lawrence Shapiro 2004. It needs a large effort of imagination to think how a snake or whale or albatross might conceptualise the world, in relation to their bodies.
Physicalism correlates brain and mind, explains causation by thought, and makes nature continuous [Bayne]
     Full Idea: The motivations for physicalism about the mind are that it accounts for correlations between states of the brain and states of thought, ...that it accounts for the causal role of thoughts, ...and that it does justice to the continuity of nature.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [summary] That is a pretty good summary of why I am a physicalist about the mind. I take all other theories to be dead footnotes in the history of thought - unless someone can produce a really good new argument. Which they can't.