Some Reflections on the Possibility of Naturalizing the Mind

Abstract

The article examines whether it is possible to provide a coherent naturalist account of the emergence of the mind (spirit), construed as a plethora of mental abilities that are present in living beings. I analyze Bateson’s information-system theory of mind, Peirce’s theory of semiotics, and some biosemiotic proposals. All of these conceptions fail to provide a plausible theoretical explanation of the emergence of the mind, particularly (i) the emergence of the interpreters of signs, and (ii) the emergence of the experiential perspective out of the non-living nature. I argue for a hypothesis based on the idea of the trans-objective perspectivity dimension, i.e. the real possibility of acquiring a more or less distinctive experiential perspective in the form of like-to-be-X for all sufficiently developed natural entities. Taking on an experiential perspective also entails a greater sensitivity to not only actual, but also potential events, e.g. a greater sensitivity to everything that can be “useful” or “harmful” to the system in question.