Mental representations, dualism, and the mind-brain problem

Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THE MIND-BRAIN

The Dualism Argument

Pure Materialist Viewpoint

Theories

Visual Stimuli vs. Speech stimuli

Descartes Point-of-View

Neurons and Synapses

Mental Representations and the Mind-Brain Relationship

In cognitive (neuro) science all through the last few decades, as in philosophy in the last 100 years, the issue of the mind-body (or mind-brain) occurrences is still open to discussion. Illogically, ever since Descartes nobody has suggested a workable alternate view of this problem. Researchers and thinkers have offered some approaches, yet none has gained the assent of the majority of thinkers. During a person's daily toils the separation that goes on between an individual mind and consciousness is hardly ever thought about or talked about. But then again it is the primary cause for the majority of your existence problems. This separation is not even a recognized fact, as consciousness and mind seem to act as one. And illogically they do. Nevertheless the separation is at the central of existence. It is what retains the materialist secluded from the spiritualist, possibly robbing advancing humanity from a progressive holistic center. With that being said, this essay will discuss the whether or not the mind and brain are fully separate or whether they are one entity.

The Dualism Argument

Research shows that the strong dualism position of Descartes makes suggestion that the mind is all the way separate from the brain, and that, for that reason, there may be no detectable display of symbols in the brain. What some could possibly note as manifestations are usually called traces, and it has been noted that their existence has been argued throughout time. Brain scans have been making the suggestion that nothing we recollect can be physically located in the brain and that there is not any geometrical place for the importance of the word "baby," nor is there an isolate location for the representation of a baseball. Nevertheless, fMRI scans reminder changes in the brain when a separate is memorizing new words. On the other hand, the changes are unrefined, smeared descriptions with no identifying, comparative to the balance of neurons or small groups of them (Bartels, 2010). However, the focus again in this assignment will make a statement on whether the mind and brain are completely distinct or whether they are one unit.

Research does show that the mind is of physical origin, fashioned out of a person's brain functions of memory, intellect, intuition and imagination. These brain functions go up and down upon demand making what is referred to as mind or mind purposes. How competently these mind tasks work actually has a lot to do with how naturally functional the brain is working, the interconnectivity of its chemical integrity and its circuitry (Sevush, 2013). Also, this is what the materialist works and sees with: the transitory brain purposes. When the body is underprivileged of life, the brain deceases. To the pure materialist that is the end of that, starting a potential doubting or an atheistic attitude.

Pure Materialist Viewpoint

Pure materialist scholars, philosophers etc. accomplish that, as the brain is material and contains all our mind functions, when it disappears, the entity that used it similarly disappears - not an unreasonable assumption. This conclusion can be reinforced by a diversity of scientifically verifiable brain function experiments. Also, one medical evidence of this contention is the devastating affliction recognized as senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease, characterized by progressively reduced availability to brain purposes. As the brain the purposes in the brain fade away, so seemingly does the entity that used them bring about in impaired use of memory plus and intellect personality incompetence. By observation that is simple, it is reasonable to make the supposition that people are possibly the sum total of their own brain function production. And once the body dies so does everything the brain functions produced. With that being said, this is a pure materialist perspective regarded upon fact that is observable.

Visual Stimuli vs. Speech stimuli

When it comes to whether or not the mind and brain are fully separate or whether they are one entity, the visual stimuli and the speech stimuli need to be looked at closely. For instance, the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN), which derives from the brain's response to stimulus deviance, is supposed to be produced by the cortex that symbolizes the stimulus (Vacariu, 2012). However, the vMMN reaction when it comes to visual speech stimuli was utilized in a research which involved lateralization of visual speech handling. Previous research made the proposal that the right posterior temporal cortex has concentration for being able to process simple non-speech face type of gestures, and of course the left posterior temporal cortex has the ability to do things such as processing visual speech signals. At this spot, visual speech consonant-vowel (CV) stimuli with measured perceptual differences were shown in an electroencephalography (EEG) vMMN model. Here it showed that the mind and the brain work together.

Now, to what extent, and where in the brain, vision influences auditory perception is not well understood and nor if the mind play a huge role or not. It is clear that visual enhancement and suppression of auditory responses have been perceived at the level of primary auditory cortex (AI) in macaques (Gabbard, 2013). However, electrophysiological recordings through the medial to lateral extent of the human temporal lobe have revealed that vision effects audition early on throughout a neural response and that visual influence spreads to hierarchically lower cortical parts (Bartels, 2010).

It is clear that speech and non-speech stimuli are able to elicit qualitatively parallel capacity levels, even though different brain circuits possibly will be involved in processing different stimulus kinds but that has nothing to do with the mind. However, audiovisual speech and non-speech integration are being examined in future studies using EEG current density reconstruction (CDR) in order to uncover potential differences in underlying patterns of neural activation and to see whether or not the mind and brain are fully separate or whether they are one entity when it comes to the non-speech stimuli.

Descartes Point-of-View

Whether or not the mind and brain are fully separate or whether they are one entity has been a discussion that Descartes tried to solve. Descartes was that he assigned the mind and body (two ontologically dissimilar elements) to the same entity, a human subject or a person (Vacariu, 2012). If this principle is accepted, it can be expected that brain and mind fit in to epistemologically diverse worlds. Clearly, it does not mean that altering any situation of what is being observed. For example, using diverse implements of observation (the eyes, fMRI and PET vs. introspection and memory), we can either observe external objects such as parts of the brain, forms of neurons, and neurons or we have internal processes and mental representations. These external and internal units fit in to EDWs. The key mistake for the mind-body (brain) issues have been the location of the brain and the mind (body) inside the same world, the "unicorn-world" (Sevush, 2013).The being of one sole "world" has never been in suspicion. Scientists and philosophers and have tried since ancient times to learn the practicalities (its structure or its essential constituents) of this unicorn-world. However, within this framework, fundamental notions such as "levels," "fundamental particles," the associations among "microparticles and macro particles," among "brain and mind," the "theory of everything," and the "core of things" or "fundamental elements" have remained unclear.

Mental representation and neural patterns of activation are not the same entity defined at dissimilar "levels" of explanation. The research shows that without any ontological ground, such "levels" are notions that are looked at as being empty, whereas neural patterns and mental states of activation are epistemologically diverse entities that belong to EDWs (Vacariu, 2012). I emphasize here that the idea of "levels" is entirely diverse then "EDWs." Equally "ontological levels" and epistemological"/"depiction"/"analysis levels" are flawed ideas when applied to brain and mind or macro particles and micro particles! In the first situation, there is what was mentioned earlier as the dualism, in the second there are empty concepts (Baars, 2013). The point is being made and highlighted that that, with EDWs, there is this change of the ontology into hyperontology that is provided by the "constitutive epistemologically diverse units." The universe or the world does not occur, it is just produced by the human imagination according to this notion.

Descartes highlighted the role of perception in recognizing two various substances, the physical and the mental. On the other hand, other theorist would more than likely substitute the idea of insight with "circumstances of observation" for external units and "circumstances of having" for internal entities. In this circumstance concerning the connection among the subject and the object (internal or external), these ideas are equal. Typically, when the idea of "perception" is utilized, most would think, directly, of the sensorial system. On the other hand, from other expert's viewpoint, the word "circumstances of observation for human beings" stands for theoretical and/or sensorial devices. From one side, with dissimilar circumstances of comment (that include diverse implements of observation), a human being can detect external entities with diverse structures.

Neurons and Synapses

Whether or not the mind and brain are fully separate or whether they are one entity also has a lot to do with the neurons and synapses. A person brain is made of about 100 billion nerve cells, which are called neurons. These neurons have the astonishing ability to gather and convey electrochemical signs to the brain but not to the mind -- they can be thought of them like the memory that goes in a computer. Research shows that the core component of the nervous system in general, and the brain in specific, is the nerve or neuron cell, the "brain cells" of general language. Also, a neuron is an electrically excitable cell that procedures and conveys information by electro-chemical motioning. Different other cells, such as the neurons never divide, and these cells do not even die off to get swapped by new ones. In the same way, they typically are not able to be replaced after being lost, even though there are a few exemptions. With that being said, the mind does play a separate role when it comes to neurons and synapses.

Conclusion

In the end, it is clear that the mind and the brain are different and have functions that can be looked at as being separate. For instance, the mind is what made humans proficient to resolve complex logical problem which set apart us from other living beings. Also, logic makes us understand that things are not as what they appear to be. People ability to analyze circumstances makes it likely to develop answers to difficulties and lead us in the direction of practical solutions.