Abstract
Many psychologists and neuroscientists still believe that brain events are causing conscious experiences and that this causal process can be revealed through the application of the methods of the natural sciences. Others, aware of the difficulties in accounting for the production of experiences on the basis of these methods, have postulated a process of “emergence” instead. Others still, also aware of the same difficulties, retreat to a sincere agnosticism and claim that the relation of brain events and conscious experiences lies beyond the reach of the methods of the natural sciences; consequently any attempts to elucidate it through such methods are pointless.
In this essay, using the experiences of word meanings as particular instances of conscious experiences in general, it is argued, first, that it is indeed impossible to demonstrate, through the standard empirical methods, that electrochemical events in the brain cause conscious experiences. Second, assuming that the doctrine of “emergence” points to a process leading from brain events to experiences rather than simply denoting impotence in specifying any such process, it is argued that “emergence” is a statement of an (occult) causal relation between brain events and experiences as well; therefore it too fails to provide a satisfactory account for the genesis of experiences. Third, it is argued that the relation of brain events to experiences can in fact be elucidated by the application of the methods of the natural science as long as no metaphysical assumptions are allowed to enter into the interpretation of the results of such applications. As for the relation thus established, it is certainly non-causal and akin to those that have been derived in the context of some ancient speculations, and in the context of the philosophical trend that runs from Spinoza, Berkeley and Kant to Wilhelm Wundt, Arthur Eddington and Bertrand Russell.
Mind and body are one and the same individual
which is conceived now under the attribute of thought,
and now under the attribute of extension.
Baruch Spinoza
…..in respect to the form of appearances, much may be said …..
whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation
of these appearances, it is impossible to say anything.
Immanuel Kant
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Notes
- 1.
Pulvermüller 1999.
- 2.
Hebb 1949.
- 3.
Pulvermüller 1999, p. 326.
- 4.
Ibid., p. 326.
- 5.
- 6.
That the issue has not been settled is amply attested by the unabated debate which has intensified in recent years see e.g. Pockett et al. (2009) and by the fact that the questions of whether and to what degree freedom of will (and of overt action) is conditioned by the physiology of the brain, are debated in thousands of courts of law, every day, throughout the world.
- 7.
Osgood et al. 1957.
- 8.
The reason being that in each instant the experience is bound to be a little different than at any other instant, given the definition of “meaning” above and also given that with the passage of time, no circuit remains exactly what it was before, following the inexorable law that ordains that all living systems age and change with time.
- 9.
Papanicolaou 2006a.
- 10.
James 1890.
- 11.
Pulvermüller 1999, p. 260.
- 12.
Ibid., p. 260.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 260.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 260.
- 15.
Papanicolaou 2006b.
- 16.
Pulvermüller 1999, p. 326.
- 17.
Márquez 1967/2006.
- 18.
Ibid., pp. 46–47.
- 19.
Gazzaniga 1992.
- 20.
Ramachandran and Blakeslee 1998.
- 21.
James 1888/1983.
- 22.
Chalmers 2000.
- 23.
Sperry 1969.
- 24.
Ibid., p. 534.
- 25.
Papanicolaou et al. 2009.
- 26.
As commented in note 8 above, given that each meaning is uniquely associated with a circuit and that circuits, being physical entities, age or otherwise change with time, no circuit, therefore no experience of meaning can be absolutely the same at two successive time points.
- 27.
Papanicolaou 1998.
- 28.
Papanicolaou 2007.
- 29.
Wundt 1874.
- 30.
Although (efficient) causes must precede their effects, mere temporal precedence alone does not qualify an event as a cause of another subsequent to it.
- 31.
Libet 1985.
- 32.
- 33.
Boring 1950.
- 34.
Feigl 1958.
- 35.
Kant 1781, 1787/1996.
- 36.
Eddington 1939.
- 37.
Russell 1914.
- 38.
Russell 1948.
- 39.
Ibid.
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Papanicolaou, A.C. (2014). The Enigmatic Deciphering of the Neuronal Code of Word Meaning. In: Smith, C., Whitaker, H. (eds) Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8774-1_12
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