Reflections on the Problem of Identifying Mind and Brain

Abstract

Present-day research within the neural/cognitive sciences is carried out within a paradigm involving a thesis about some kind of identity between mind and brain. This paper concerns the possibility of making such an identification. It is first argued that empirical findings cannot by themselves establish that mental events are identical with neural events, to that end some rational or logical principle is further needed. The identity thesis is then scrutinized and it is found that the thesis itself is hard to make sense of. Despite the evident problems inherent in the identity research paradigm, a number of philosophers and scientists have, in recent years, tried to spell out in more detail theories about the relation between mind and brain involving identity claims. These theories are briefly presented, and some of their shortcomings are noted. The later part of the paper concentrates on the conscious character of all mental events, and it is argued that for logical-conceptual reasons a full explanation of this character cannot be given within a scientific theory. This seems fatal to any attempt at identifying mental events with neural events in the brain, and thus to the whole project of studying the mental realm with the means of ordinary empirical scientific methods.