Definition
“Mental causation” is a term for the causal interaction between mental and physical phenomena. Although it applies to physical-to-mental causation and mental-tomental causation no less than to mental-to-physical causation, it is customarily reserved for instances of mental-to-physical causation, as when a sharp pain makes one wince, fear makes the heart beat faster, remembering an embarrassing situation makes one blush, and Fred's desire for beer and his belief that there is beer in the fridge cause him to go to the fridge.
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© 2009 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg
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(2009). Mental Causation. In: Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (eds) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_3432
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_3432
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Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23735-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-29678-2
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