The Mind-Brain Identity Theory: What Does It Consist Of?
The Mind-Brain Identity Theory It is one of the areas of study of the philosophy of mind, which is, in turn, the branch of philosophy in charge of investigating and reflecting on mental processes and their relationship with physical principles, especially those that take place in brain.
These issues have been addressed through very different proposals. One of them maintains that mental states and their contents (beliefs, thoughts, meanings, sensations, intentions, etc.) are nothing more than neural processes, that is, the set of complex activities that take place in a specific physical-chemical organ: the brain.
We know this approach as physicalism, neurological monism, or Mind-Brain Identity Theory.
The philosophy of mind is responsible for studying and theorizing about the mind-brain relationship a problem that has been with us for many centuries, but that has become especially acute since the second half of the 20th century, when computer science, cognitive science and neuroscience began to form part of the same discussion.
This discussion was already the first precedent for what the American neurologist Eric Kandel would declare in the year 2000: if the 20th century was the century of genetics; The 21st century is the century of neuroscience, or more specifically, it is the century of the biology of the mind.
However, the main exponents of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory are found in the 1950s: the British philosopher UT Place and the Austrian philosopher Herbert Feigl, among others. A little earlier, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was EG Boring who was the first to use the term “identity theory” in relation to the mind-brain problem.
We could still go back a little, and find that some bases were conceived by philosophers and scientists such as Leucippus, Hobbes, La Matiere or d’Holbach. The latter made a suggestion that would seem like a joke, but that, in reality, is quite close to the proposals of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory: Just as the liver secretes bile, the brain secretes thought.
The contemporary Mind-Brain Identity Theory maintains that the states and processes of the mind are identical to brain processes, that is, it is not that mental processes have a correlation with the physical processes of the brain, but that , mental processes are nothing more than neuronal activities.
This theory denies that there are subjective experiences with non-physical properties (which in philosophy of mind are known as “qualia”), thereby reducing psychic and intentional acts to the activity of neurons. That is why it is known as a physicalist theory or also as neurological monism.
Some fundamental principles
One of the central arguments of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory is that only the physical laws of nature are what allow us to explain what the world is like, including the human being and his cognitive processes (that is why there are those who also call this theory “naturalism”).
From here, proposals with different nuances are derived. For example, mental processes are not phenomena with their own realities, but in any case they are accessory phenomena that accompany the main phenomenon (the physical one) without any type of influence on it. Mental processes and subjectivity would then be a set of epiphenomena.
If we go a little further, the next thing that holds is that all the things we call beliefs, intentions, desires, experiences, common sense, etc. They are empty words that we have attached to the complex processes that occur in the brain, because this way the scientific community (and non-scientific too) can understand itself better.
And in one of the most extreme poles, we can find, as part of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory, materialist eliminativism, a philosophical position that even proposes eliminating the conceptual apparatus with which we have explained the mind, and replacing it with the concepts of neurosciences, so that it has greater scientific rigor.
Are we more than a set of neurons?
One of the criticisms of this philosophical position is that philosophical practice itself, as well as the construction of theories about the mind, could be denying themselves when they position themselves in physicalism or neurological monism, since, far from being theoretical reflections and rigorous scientific, the philosophy of mind itself would be nothing more than a set of neuronal processes.
It has also been criticized for being a strongly reductionist position, which denies subjective experiences, which may not be enough to understand a large part of social and individual phenomena. Among other things, this would occur because at a practical level it is difficult to get rid of notions such as sensations, thoughts, freedom, common sense, etc. because they are notions that have effects in terms of how we perceive ourselves and relate to both the idea we have of ourselves and others.
