The Theory of Mind-Brain Identity: what does it consist of?

Some reasonings of the philosophy of mind that we will analyze in today's article.

The Theory of Mind-Brain Identity is one of the areas of study of the philosophy of mind, which is, in turn, the branch of philosophy in charge of investigating and reflecting on mental processes and their relationship with physical principles, especially with those that take place in the brain.

These questions have been approached through very different proposals. One of them holds that mental states and their contents (beliefs, thoughts, meanings, sensations, intentions, etc.) are nothing more than neural processes, i.e., the set of complex activities that take place in a specific physical-chemical organ: the brain.

This approach is known as physicalism, neurological monism, or the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity.

What does the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity say?

The philosophy of mind is in charge of studying and theorizing about the mind-brain relationship.This problem has been with us for many centuries, but has become more acute especially since the second half of the 20th century, when computer sciences, cognitive sciences and neurosciences began to be part of the same discussion.

This discussion was already the first precursor to what the American neurologist Eric Kandel declared in 2000: if the 20th century was the century of genetics, the 21st century is the century of neuroscience, or more specifically, the century of the biology of the mind.

However, the main exponents of the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity are to be found in the 1950's: the British philosopher U.T. Place and the Austrian philosopher Herbert Feigl, among others. A little earlier, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was E.G. Boring was the first to use the term "identity theory" in relation to the mind-brain problem.

We could still go back a little further, and find that some bases were conceived by philosophers and scientists such as Leucippus, Hobbes, La Matiere or d'Holbach. The latter made a suggestion that would seem to be a joke, but which, in reality, is quite close to the proposals of the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity: just as the liver secretes bile, so the brain secretes thought..

The contemporary Mind-Brain Identity Theory holds that the states and processes of the mind are identical to brain processes, i.e., it is not that mental processes have a correlate with the physical processes of the brain, but that mental processes are nothing more than neural activities.

This theory denies the existence of subjective experiences with non-physical properties (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia"), thus reducing psychic and intentional acts to the activity of neurons. This is why it is known as a physicalist theory or also as neurologicalist monism.

Some fundamental principles

One of the central arguments of the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity is that only the physical laws of nature can explain how the world is, including human beings and their cognitive processes (that is why some people also call this theory "naturalism").

From this point, proposals with different nuances are derived. For example, that mental processes are not phenomena with their own realities, but are in any case accessory phenomena that accompany the main phenomenon (the physical) without any influence on it. Mental processes and subjectivity would then be a set of epiphenomena..

If we go a little further, the next thing that is argued is that all the things we call beliefs, intentions, desires, experiences, common sense, etc. are empty words that we have put to the complex processes that occur in the brain, because this way the scientific (and non-scientific too) community can understand each other better.

And in one of the most extreme poles, we can find as part of the Theory of Mind-Brain Identity, the materialistic eliminativism, a philosophical position that even proposes to eliminate the conceptual apparatus with which we have explained the mind, and replace it with the concepts of neuroscience, so that it has greater scientific rigor.

Are we more than a set of neurons?

One of the criticisms of this philosophical stance is that philosophical practice itself, as well as the construction of theories about the mind, could be denying themselves when they position themselves in physicalism or neurological monism, since, far from being rigorous theoretical and scientific reflections, the philosophy of mind itself would be nothing more than a set of neural processes.

It has also been criticized for being a strongly reductionist position, which denies subjective experiences.It has also been criticized for being a strongly reductionist position, denying subjective experiences, which might not be sufficient to understand a large part of social and individual phenomena. Among other things, this would occur because at a practical level it is complicated to detach from notions such as sensations, thoughts, freedom, common sense, etc. because they are notions that have effects in terms of how we perceive and relate to the idea we have of ourselves, as well as of others.

Bibliographical references:

• Sanguineti, J.J. (2008). Philosophy of Mind. Published June 2008 in Philosophica, Philosophical Encyclopedia online. Retrieved April 24, 2018. Available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31512350/Voz_Filosofia_Mente.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1524565811&Signature=c21BcswSPp1JIGSmQ%2FaI1djoPGE%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFilosofia_de_la_mente._Voz_de_Diccionari.pdf
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007). The Mind/Brain Identity Theory. Originally published January 12, 2000; revised May 18, 2007. Retrieved April 24, 2018. Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/#His