Thursday, January 17, 2013

Mind and Body: Dual Entities, or a Redundant Distinction?

Many of you have probably heard of the mind-body problem: What is the relationship between mind and matter, between consciousness and the brain? Is the mind a distinct entity, not reproducible to the basic firing of neurons? Or is consciousness merely a result of brain chemicals interacting with receptors?

The mind-body problem can be traced back to Descartes, who believed that the immaterial mind interacted with the material body through the pineal gland (a small endocrine gland located in the center of the brain that produces melatonin, the hormone involved in the sleep-wake cycle). Since Descartes, many philosophers have addressed the question. Their approaches can be broadly categorized into monism (the idea that mind and matter are two aspects of the same thing) and dualism (which assumes a rigid distinction between mind and body).

As a firm believer in the scientific method and the wonders of scientific inquiry, I find it hard to believe in an immaterial mind that exists in parallel to the body. It seems we need to turn to cognitive neuroscience to answer this age-old question. However, finding neural correlates for the subjective experiences we term "consciousness" is certainly no simple task. In fact, David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of mind, calls the task the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." The Hard Problem contrasts with the Easy Problem, which deals with how we obtain and integrate information (which is much easier, since we can point to specific brain regions that deal with these types of processes). How can we prove that the subjective experience of consciousness is caused by physical processes, such as simple neural processes? Only time (and innovative science) will tell.


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