Example research essay topic: Brain Processes Identity Theory - 980 words

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... he continuous medium of the tension through which the feelings and terror of the man are transmitted which makes a reader realise more about the effect of the emotion of fear that is the cornerstone of both texts. "; " 100 "; " 3194 "; " 1012757349 "; " 29551 "; " 5 "L Lonergan"; "The Identity Theory"; "The Identity Theory of Mind The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is identical to the brain. Idiomatically we do use She has a good mind and She has a good brain interchangeably but we would hardly say Her mind weighs fifty ounces.

Here I take identifying mind and brain as being a matter of identifying processes and perhaps states of the mind and brain. Consider an experience of pain, or of seeing something, or of having a mental image. The identity theory of mind is to the effect that these experiences just are brain processes, not merely correlated with brain processes. Some philosophers hold that though experiences are brain processes they nevertheless have fundamentally non-physical, psychical, properties, sometimes called qualia. Here I shall take the identity theory as denying the existence of such irreducible non-physical properties. Some identity theorists give a behavioristic analysis of mental states, such as beliefs and desires, but others, sometimes called central state materialists, say that mental states are actual brain states.

Identity theorists often describe themselves as materialists but physicalist's may be a better word. That is, one might be a materialist about mind but nevertheless hold that there are entities referred to in physics that are not happily described as material. In taking the identity theory (in its various forms) as a species of physicalism, I should say that this is an ontological, not a translational physicalism. It would be absurd to try to translate sentences containing the word brain or the word sensation into sentences about electrons, protons and so on. Nor can we so translate sentences containing the word tree. After all tree is largely learned ostensibly, and is not even part of botanical classification.

If we were small enough a dandelion might count as a tree. Nevertheless a physicist could say that trees are complicated physical mechanisms. The physicist will deny strong emergence in the sense of some philosophers, such as Samuel Alexander and possibly C. D. Broad. The latter remarked (Broad 1937) that as far as was known at that time the properties of common salt cannot be deduced from the properties of sodium in isolation and of chlorine in isolation. (He put it too epistemologically: chaos theory shows that even in a deterministic theory theory physical consequences can outrun predictability. ) Of course the physicist will not deny the harmless sense of "emergence" in which an apparatus is not just a jumble of its parts (Smart 1981).

The natural sciences are having increasing success in explaining our behavior as the result of physio-chemical mechanisms. These scientific explanations of our behavior appeal only to the presence of certain processes in our brain (and certain neural and muscular connections between our brain and our limbs). In addition, we are getting better and better explanations of phenomena like perception, memory, and reasoning in terms of processes in our brain. So it looks like we have two choices: &# 61623; Either we say that our mental states are perfectly correlated with certain brain processes (but still something over and above those brain processes) &# 61623; Or we say that our mental states are identical to those brain processes Smart argues that considerations of simplicity support the second account. (See the end of his paper, where he compares the choice between these two accounts to the choice between creationist and orthodox geology. The orthodox geology is more plausible because it is simpler. The creationist geology postulates too many brute and inexplicable facts.

For just the same reasons, Smart thinks, we should prefer the Identity Theory over the view that our mental states are perfectly correlated with our brain processes. ) Note that when Smart says things like "pain is C-fiber firing, " he is not attempting to tell us what the concept "pain" means. One can understand the concept of "pain" perfectly well without knowing that pain and C-fiber firing are the same thing. At one point in his paper, Smart does offer an account of what some sensation-concepts, like "having an orange after-image, " mean. He argues that the meaning of these concepts is topic-neutral. That is, it leaves it an open question whether the sensations in question are identical to processes in the brain, or to process taking place in Cartesian souls, or to some other sort of process.

So, in Smart's view, the meaning of sensation-concepts leaves it open whether or not sensations are identical to brain-processes. It takes scientific investigation, and considerations of simplicity, to show that sensations are in fact brain processes. Sensations are brain processes. The fundamental thesis of the identity theory is that mental phenomena are brain phenomena. For any mental state M there will be a brain state B such that M is identical to B. This is not meant to be a claim about the meaning of the words but rather a contingent and empirical identity.

For example, the claim that pain is the firing of C-fibers requires empirical, experimental support unlike the claim that a bachelor is an unmarried man. Put another way, the identity theory makes a claim about the world, not about the meanings of the words we use to describe it. Two phenomena are claimed to be actually one and the same phenomenon. The phenomenon we describe using the word "pain" is the same phenomenon as the one we describe using the phrase, "the firing of C-fibers."

Research essay sample on Brain Processes Identity Theory