Despised Dualism

Abstract

Scientists in different fields are free, to some extent, to use concepts that appear to work for them, without regard to other scientific disciplines. However, many of the greatest advances in science have come from unifying the treatments of neighboring realms of phenomena. We are now engaged a great scientific endeavor to rationally connect the neurophysiological and psychological aspects of the conscious brain. The problem is to understand, explain, or describe the connections between two realms that are conceived of – and are described in – two very different ways. What seems pertinent is that basic physics was forced by the character of empirical phenomena to an incredibly successful way to link these same two realms. It seems reasonable to at least try to apply the solution discovered by physicists to the parallel problem in neuropsychology. Why should there be such scorn in brain science for this natural and reasonable idea of bringing mind into neuropsychology in the same way that it was brought into physics in connection with the relationship between the empirically described and physically described aspects of scientific practice?