The Mind-Brain Principle
Page-ID: 24. Version 1.0. Last updated: 1 Aug 2023
The mind, the brain and the relation between them
What is a mind, and what is a brain? Are they the same thing or something different? What is the connection between them? These questions are important when trying to establish psychology from first principles, since the mind and the brain are what psychology is all about. So let us first try to define what we mean when we talk about the mind and the brain.
The Mind
What is a mind? If you take a moment and think about what you are experiencing right now you might note that there are things you see, things you hear, maybe there is something you smell or taste. You might also feel the touch of something, feel heat or cold, feel pain or pleasurable sensations. You can experience how your body is positioned, where your arms and legs are, whether you feel balanced or not. You may notice that you have certain feelings and thoughts. Whatever you are experiencing at this moment, these experiences are all part of your mind. Whether you are experiencing something in the world, or something that is just in your head, these are still things that are experienced by you, that have your point of view. This is what it means to have a mind: having a conscious experience, having a perspective from which to be aware of things.
From this perspective you can discover more things about yourself. For example, you can notice that your body moves when you try to reach for something, or that your heart rate increases when you get scared. In other words, you can discover that your mind does not simply experience things, it can also do things. Some of these things you have control over, like lifting your arm, while others you do not have control over, like the increased heart rate when you get scared. You can also come up with ideas, fantasies and logical reasonings. You can make decisions, you can make plans. These are also things that the mind can do. To a large extent you may have control over these things too, but the mind also has a “mind of its own” in some sense. For example, some thoughts get stuck in your head although you wish to get rid of them.
Another thing you can discover is that you have memories. Things you have experienced before pop up in your mind, or you find yourself doing something automatically that you had practiced before. You might not have known the memory was there somewhere in the back of your mind, because you only experience them once they show themselves. But again and again you get proof that memories have formed in your brain and are available. So even though you are not directly aware of all your stored memories, they are also part of your mind.
Then there are things that affect your mind indirectly. When you have had trouble sleeping for a couple of days you may notice that you have trouble remembering things. When you are really hungry you may find that you have trouble focusing on something. When you have a concussion you may discover that doing mentally hard things becomes really difficult. In other words, the mind’s ability to function is affected by physical things like sleep, food, and injury. Although it may seem mysterious how this works, there is at least a sense from the perspective of your mind that part of your mind is something outside your direct consciousness that changes depending on physical things.
So this is the mind. In short, the mind consists of conscious experience, physical and mental behaviors that it can perform, memories that it has, and other unconscious things that affect the mind’s ability to function. The mind is the perspective from the conscious being (the consciousness) itself.
The brain
What, then, is a brain? Few people have seen a brain in real life, or at least not so many times. But thanks to doctors and scientists, we have managed to gain a lot of knowledge about it. The brain is a big organ inside the head of an animal. It is sort of squishy, and has folds in it. The human brain consists of three parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem. The cerebrum is the biggest part. It is symmetrical with two halves that mirror each other. We call them the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.
The brain is made up of neurons. Neurons are long cells with a cell body and an axon, which is a long stem that connects to the cell body of other neurons with a short gap in between. This gap is called the synapse. When the cell body of a neuron is stimulated by some physical energy, it sends an electric current throughout its axon. When this electric current reaches the end of the axon, chemical compounds called neurotransmitters are released into the synapse. These then cross the gap and stimulate the cell body of the connected neuron. This in turn can cause it to send an electric current throughout its axon, and so on.
In order for the neurons to function properly there are also blood vessels and other cells in the brain that provide things that the neurons need.
The brain is part of a wider system in the body called the nervous system. This consists of two parts, the central nervous system which consists of the brain and the spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system which consists of nerves that branch out to the rest of the body. In this way, the whole body is connected via neurons. Some neurons go from the body to the brain, and can thus send signals to the brain about things that are going on in the body. Some neurons go out from the brain, and can thus send signals to the rest of the body that causes it to do things.
So this is the brain. In short, the brain consists of three parts called the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brainstem. The cerebrum consists of two hemispheres: the right and the left. The brain is made up of neurons that are connected to each other. When a neuron is stimulated, it sends an electric current throughout the neuron, and activates neurons that it is connected with. The brain receives signals from the body and sends signals to the body via the nervous system.
The relation between the mind and the brain
As can be seen, the description of what the mind is is very different from the description of what the brain is. Yet somehow, we tend to think of the mind and the brain as basically the same thing. What exactly is the relation between the mind and the brain? The short answer is that the mind and the brain are two sides of the same coin. They are just different ways of viewing the same thing.
When a certain set of neurons fire, a certain conscious experience occurs, and vice versa. When a memory is formed, new connections are created between neurons in the brain, and vice versa. When neurons from the brain activate muscles in our body, a behavior is performed, and vice versa. Thus, when we talk about the brain, we are talking about the physical events that can be observed from the outside. When we talk about the mind, we are talking about the mental events that can be observed from the inside. So the physical and the mental events are really the same thing, only different perspectives, or properties.
This is the mind-brain principle, which is perhaps the most fundamental of the first principles of psychology. The mind-brain principle states:
The mind and the brain are just different perspectives, or properties, of the same thing.
Whether we choose to talk about the mind or the brain, depends on what is most helpful in the specific situation. If we want to talk about the memories a person has of their childhood, it can be more useful to talk about the mind and how the person’s experience shaped those memories. If we want to talk about how Parkinson’s disease is affecting a person, it can be more useful to talk about the brain and how this affects the neurons and its connections. But sometimes we may want to talk about both in the same sentence. For example, we might want to say that a stroke caused damage to a certain part of the brain, and these parts affect the person’s ability to experience objects.
The sciences of the mind and the brain
Since the mind and the brain both are different things while also being the same thing, we can study these things in different ways. Science on these topics can broadly be categorized into three different fields:
Psychology is the study of the mind.
Neurobiology is the study of the nervous system (including the brain).
(Cognitive) neuroscience is the study of how the mind and brain relate to each other.
Sometimes, however, the term “psychology” is used as a broader term to include both the study of the mind and the brain.
When establishing the first principles of psychology, it is thus possible to limit the theory to just the study of the mind. One advantage of this is that we know a lot more about the mind than we do about the brain, and so theories of how the brain works are a lot less certain. But it can be useful to at least include the basic aspects of the brain in a unified theory of psychology, to make the connection between the mind and the brain clearer.
An analogy: The computer
If the idea of having two perspectives of the same thing seems strange to you, we can use an analogy to make it more understandable. Let’s take a computer. The brain is like the hardware, in other words, the physical computer consisting of physical transistors connected to each other. While the mind is like the software, in other words, the programs that run on the computer.
When something happens in a program, this corresponds to some physical activity in the computer, and vice versa, when something happens in the transistors of the physical computer, this corresponds to something happening in the program. We could describe any event in the computer as a set of transistors being on or off. For example, the event of a red pixel appearing on a screen would correspond to a set of 24 transistors being in the states [on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off], in other words, the first 8 transistors are on, and the other 16 transistors are off. Or expressing this in terms of 1’s and 0’s: [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0], in other words, 8 1’s followed by 16 0’s.
A normal computer has billions of transistors. So if we want to describe what is going on in the computer in terms of whether the transistors are on or off, we would get overwhelmed by the billions of 1’s and 0’s that this would involve. This wouldn’t be very helpful in explaining why a certain image appeared when we pressed a certain button in the program. It is much more useful to talk about what happened in terms of how the program works. For example, a program is coded in such a way that pressing one button will cause one thing to happen, and pressing another button will cause something else to happen.
People use computers successfully every single day without having any knowledge of transistors. For most situations, understanding the computer in terms of transistors isn’t necessary, since the programs can be understood at a higher level. If we use a writing program to write some text, then we can learn that if we click our mouse and drag it over some text, the text will become selected. If we then click the symbol “B” in the program, then the selected text will turn bold. And so on. We can learn the logic of a program just by exploring it. We don’t need to open up the computer to watch how the transistors turn on and off.
If we want to understand how it is physically possible for the program to work at all we would of course need to explain this in terms of the transistors, because this is the fundamental underlying nature of the program. Similarly, if the program suddenly crashes, the only way we could really understand this is in terms of transistors misbehaving, for example, they might have become overheated. Nothing within the program explains why it crashed, because the program only codes for what will happen as long as the transistors work as they should.
It is important to understand here that the transistors don’t cause the program to do what it does, nor does the program cause the transistors to act the way they act, they are just different ways of describing the same thing. The program would not be possible without the transistors, and the transistors could never perform what it does, unless there was some program. In other words, the activity of the transistors and the activity of the program are just different ways or levels of viewing the same thing.
We have the same situation with the mind and the brain. We could explain something in terms of which of the billions of neurons that were activated in which way, or we could explain it in terms of “I wanted cake, so I reached out and grabbed some”. Usually, it is much easier to describe it in mental terms. And in similarity with how the computer works, it is not the case that it was the brain that caused us to want this, and caused us to do that. The brain is just a different way of viewing what happened. Likewise, it is not the case that it was the mind that caused the neurons in the brain to do such and such. The mind is just a different way of viewing what happened.
The reasoning and further details
The Mind
The question
What is “the mind”? (What is the most appropriate definition of “the mind”?)
Why is this question important?
The mind is a central concept in psychology. If we are to succeed in finding the first principles of psychology, we need to have a good understanding of what the mind is.
Observations
We can perceive (i.e. consciously experience) the world around us
We can perceive (i.e. consciously experience) our body
We can experience emotions
We can make decisions
We can reason
We can perform behaviors
We can remember things we have experienced previously
We can learn new behaviors
We can imagine things
Events occur unconsciously that affect our behaviors as well as our ability to experience things (the effect of learning, sleep, drugs)
Hypotheses (alternatives for definitions)
1) The term “the mind” includes only conscious experience
2) The term “the mind” includes conscious experience, as well as behaviors we perform and events that occur outside our conscious experience that influence our ability to experience and perform behaviors (for example memories)
3) The term “the mind” includes everything that our conscious experience interacts with, for example our bodies, tools, other people etc. (This view is called “the extended mind”)
Evaluation of hypotheses
1) Hypothesis 1 is not an adequate definition of “the mind” because it leaves out too much. If we only include conscious experience we cannot talk about “memories” as being part of the mind, we cannot talk about subliminal perception being a feature of the mind, we cannot talk about unconscious processes like non-dream sleep that affects our abilities to think, etc.
2) Hypothesis 2 is the best definition of the mind, because it includes all the listed observations, which all are intimately connected in understanding our conscious experience.
3) Hypothesis 3 (the extended mind) is not an adequate definition because if we include the body or things in the world within the concept of the mind, then we cannot talk about the mind interacting with these things, and that will make it impossible to apply the laws of the mind.
The Brain
The question
What is “the brain”? (What is the most appropriate definition of “the brain”?)
Why is this question important?
The brain is a central concept in psychology. If we are to succeed in finding the first principles of psychology, we need to have a good understanding of what the brain is.
Observations
There is a nervous system in our body, consisting of interconnected neurons
The nervous system is centralized in our head, where the most neurons and neuronal connections of our body reside
When a neuron is stimulated, an electrical current travels along the neuron, activating neurotransmitters at the other end, which in turn stimulate other neurons
Hypotheses (alternatives for definitions)
The brain consists of the interconnected neurons in our head
The Mind vs The Brain
The question
What is the relation between the mind and the brain?
Why is this question important?
The terms “mind” and “brain” are often used interchangeably by many people, while for some people the mind and the brain are seen as very different things. It is important to know the differences between “mind” and “brain”, as well as how they are connected, otherwise it will be hard to establish psychology from first principles.
Observations
People have conscious experience. There is something it is like to be a person.
There is a nervous system including a brain, consisting of neurons that are connected to each other.
Neurons in the brain follow the laws of physics, where electrical current in one neuron causes the release of neurotransmitters that activates an electrical current in another neuron.
When neural activity in the brain stops (as it does in anesthesia) or is greatly decreased (as in non-REM sleep), so does conscious experience.
When conscious experience stops (as it does in non-REM sleep, or when we faint), the neural activity in the brain either stops or is greatly reduced.
When damage occurs to part of the brain, some psychological functions cease to exist/work.
The conscious experience we have or the behavior we perform is correlated with specific neural activity, and vice versa.
The moment we consciously make a decision, is the same exact moment that the corresponding neural activity occurs. (i.e. Libet’s original experiments that claimed the opposite have been shown to be false)
Changing the brain (via drugs or stimulation) changes the conscious experience.
We can reflect on the fact that we are conscious, that there is something it is like to be alive.
Hypotheses
The mind does not exist, there is only the brain (pure eliminativism)
The brain does not exist, only the mind (subjective idealism)
The mind is just an after-effect of the brain activity, and has no causal power. In other words, the brain can cause conscious experience to occur, but conscious experience, the mind, can not cause things to happen in the brain (epiphenomenalism)
The mind and the brain are two different types of substances that interact such that things that happen in the mind can cause things to happen in the brain, and vice versa (substance dualism)
The mind and the brain are two different properties of the same thing: the mind is neuronal activity as experienced from “the inside”, while the physical neural activity is the mind as seen from “the outside” (property dualism)
(There are other hypotheses as well, but the above five hypotheses are the most general forms, of which other hypotheses are variations of some kind)
Evaluation of hypotheses
Pure eliminativism is false
Pure eliminativism states that there is no mind or mental states. There is only the physical brain. But given that we have observed that people have conscious experience, then pure eliminativism must be false.
Subjective idealism is false
Subjective idealism states that the only thing that exists is the mind, and what appears to be a real world outside of us is really just part of our mind. But given that we have observed brains and how conscious experience stops when the brain stops functioning, subjective idealism must be false. Otherwise conscious experience would continue to occur even when the brain stops functioning. (As for the deeper discussion about what it means for something to be real, we will have to take a look at that at a later time).
Epiphenomenalism is false
Epiphenomenalism states that conscious experience has no causal power, it is merely an after-effect of the physical activity of the brain.
If epiphenomenalism were true, it would mean that the brain processes everything in a non-experiential or non-conscious way. In other words, instead of there being an experience of a red car in the brain, there is simply a non-conscious representation of the world that is causally connected to the red car, much like a computer that is given a picture as an input, and simply represents this as a string of “meaningless” 0’s and 1’s. And as the brain processes information, this causes other non-conscious representations to occur, in a logical manner. And while this goes on, the brain simply “adds on” or “sends out” conscious experience of some of these non-conscious representations as an after-effect of what is going on in the brain. On this view, the experience of what goes on in the brain isn’t actually necessary for the brain to do what it does. The experience is simply a bonus. We get to experience what is going on, but our experience itself does not have any causal power.
But given the observations available regarding the mind and the brain, we know that it is possible for us to reflect on the fact that we are conscious. We may have thoughts like “I wonder whether everyone experiences the color green the same way I do.” or “It is just amazing that I get to have conscious experience!”. And these thoughts may in turn affect our behavior. Perhaps we decide to approach a friend and ask “What is your color green like? Do you think it is the same as the color I experience?”. Or perhaps we sit for an hour on the sofa reflecting on how amazing it is to have conscious experience, instead of taking care of chores that are waiting for us. Or we decide to write a text about the nature of consciousness. If conscious experience was merely an after-effect without any causal role, these things would not be possible, because the fact that something is experienced could never be captured by non-conscious representation.
A non-conscious representation that merely matches the fact that there is a red car can not differentiate between the non-conscious mental state of there being a red car and the conscious mental state of experiencing a red car, and as we have seen, only the mental state involving the actual experience can explain the further events that take place in some situations, such as asking a friend if they experience the color red the same way we do, or writing a text about the fact that we can experience a red car.
We must conclude that conscious experience has a causal effect. Therefore, epiphenomenalism is false.
Substance dualism is false
Substance dualism states that both the brain and the mind exist and have causal power, but they are different substances and so things that happen in the brain need to be communicated to the mind and vice versa.
Given that our conscious experience has causal power as we saw when discussing epiphenomenalism, we may then think that perhaps it is possible for substance dualism to be true. But if the mind was a separate substance that had to receive information from the brain, and then send information back to the brain, this would mean one of two things:
Either
- No new information occurs in the mind (i.e. no new thought, decision, etc), and the brain simply receives back the same information it sent out to the mind, or
- Some new information appears in the mind (i.e. some new thought, decision, intention etc.) that was not present in the brain, and by sending this back to the brain the brain does something it could not have done without receiving this information from the mind
If 1) is true, then the mind (i.e. conscious experience) no longer has any causal power, since the brain gets nothing it didn’t already have on its own from the mind. So this alternative can not be true. (This would just be epiphenomenalism again).
If 2) is true, then there are thoughts and other mental events that do not occur in the brain, but yet are necessary for the brain to work. If we think about how brains work, this would mean that a set of neurons are activated, then something happens in the separate “mind substance”, and only because what happens in the “mind substance” the brain is able to activate a new set of neurons. But this would violate the laws of physics. We know that neurons work through electrical currents and release of neurotransmitters. In other words, when one set of neurons are activated, they must by necessity activate another set of neurons given how neurons are composed and what the laws of physics are like. There is no room for some additional information from a separate mental substance to enter into the events that take place.
Therefore, substance dualism must be false.
But how then do we explain the fact that conscious experience has causal power? The answer is another type of dualism.
Property dualism is true
Property dualism is different from substance dualism in that it does not state that the brain and the mind are different substances. Instead, it states that the mind and the brain are different properties of the same thing. Neuronal activity (at least some of it) has both
- physical properties, which are seen from the outside, i.e. the neurons, and
- mental properties, which are seen from the inside, i.e. the conscious experience
In other words, the brain consists of the physical properties of neuronal activity, and the mind consists of the mental properties of neuronal activity. No information goes between the brain and the mind, because the brain information and mind information occur simultaneously, they are just different ways of viewing the same information, or activity.
So how does this hypothesis hold up to the available observations? The hypothesis correctly states that there is conscious experience (that there is a mind) and that there is neuronal activity (that there is a brain). Since the mind and the brain are just different properties of the same activity, this means that the neuronal activity can also follow the laws of physics. No mind information has to enter the process from some outside substance, like it did in substance dualism. The mind is present anyway because it is just a property of the law-abiding physical activity.
But how then do we explain the fact that conscious experience has causal power? Well, given the available facts, we are forced to draw the conclusion that the physical activity in the brain (at least some or most of it) could not occur unless it also had the property of being conscious experience. To repeat it slightly differently: It is only because the physical activity in the brain is conscious that it is able to activate other physical activity in the brain (at least for some of the activity). This is a mind-bending idea, but it is the only logical consequence given the facts that we are able to think about the fact that we are conscious (and thus conscious experience itself has a causal effect on our mind and behavior), and the fact that neurons follow the laws of physics.
How could physical activity be dependent on conscious experience? There are a number of possible explanations:
1) Consciousness could be the fundamental nature of everything in the universe, and what we see as physical activity and physical laws are really just a physical manifestation of something that at its core is actually mental/conscious. In other words, when something like a proton travels through space, this is actually the proton wanting to move forward, but this wanting is seen from the outside as physical movement, or something of that kind. This view would have to find a good explanation for why it seems that at least some activity in the brain is not consciously experienced (for example, when we have dreamless sleep).
2) Only some physical forces or events have mental properties.
For example, it could be that electric or magnetic forces have mental properties, and that these forces only work or exist because they are conscious. This view would also have to explain why at least some activity in the brain then is not consciously experienced, since electric and magnetic forces are present even for neuronal activity that is not consciously experienced.
To take another example, it could also be the case that as we get a better and better understanding of how the brain works, we will discover that neurons don’t just activate as a result of simple electric stimulation, but for more complex coordination of the neuronal activation certain quantum mechanical events are required, and these quantum mechanical events are conscious experience.
Regardless of which explanation is correct, given that property dualism must be true, this means that most (if not all) neuronal activity can be equally described or explained in terms of the physical properties (i.e. the neuronal activation) as well as in terms of the mental properties (i.e. the conscious experience). We can choose whether to describe a psychological event either from the outside perspective or from the inside perspective.
Work in progress:
The physical process of conscious experience
Question
What is the physical process that has conscious experience?
Why is this question important?
Knowing which specific physical process has conscious experience would allow us to get a deeper understanding of how consciousness arose in our universe, and to determine which organisms and artificial intelligences are conscious and which are not.
Observations
There are different degrees of consciousness, with some phenomena being experienced very clearly/strongly, others only vaguely/weakly, and yet others not at all.
When our senses are strongly stimulated (for example, bright light in our eyes, loud noises in our ears, strong tastes on our tongue), they are experienced more clearly/strongly. When this occurs, the corresponding neurons fire at a high frequency.
When our senses are weakly stimulated (for example, dim light in our eyes, soft noises in our ears, weak tastes on our tongue), they are experienced more vaguely/weakly. When this occurs, the corresponding neurons fire at a low frequency.
When we pay attention to something, the degree of conscious experience of that thing increases (i.e. is experienced more clearly/strongly), while the experience of the other things present at the moment decreases (i.e. is experienced less clearly/strongly). When this happens, the corresponding neurons start to fire at a higher frequency for the attended thing, while they start to fire at a lower frequency for the things outside our attention.
During sleep we have no conscious awareness during non-REM sleep. During this phase, all the neurons in the brain fire at a very low frequency, although the frequency increases slightly at later stages of non-REM sleep. During REM-sleep most people do have conscious awareness in the form of dreams. During this phase neurons fire at specific parts of the brain corresponding to what we dream about, and the frequency of firing for these neurons are higher than during non-REM sleep, but not as high as during wakefulness.
During anesthesia we do not have conscious awareness, and none of the neurons in the brain fire at all during such an event.
When we perform physical behaviors (i.e. move our muscles) we are not directly consciously aware of what we do. Our conscious awareness only arises as the behaviors subsequently stimulate our senses.
Aside from the decision to perform a behavior, the rest of the neuronal activity responsible for performing a physical action occurs in the cerebellum.
The cerebellum is only weakly integrated with the rest of the brain.
When new connections form in the brain, we are not consciously aware of such events, but only experience these effects indirectly.
The formation of new connections in the brain is not a neuronal activation, although it occurs as a result of neuronal activation (prediction error).
When a stimulus is presented to a human, the stimulus is not immediately consciously experienced. It takes roughly 50 ms before conscious experience arises, depending on the person and the stimulus.
When stimuli are presented just above the time threshold for conscious experience, the stimulus is not experienced coherently, but instead the stimulus elements (the parts of the stimulus) are experienced separately. For example, when presented with a green triangle and a red circle for a very short amount of time, we may experience this as something green, something red, something shaped as a triangle, and something shaped as a circle. And we may connect these stimulus elements incorrectly, such that we see a red triangle and green circle instead.
The time required for a stimulus to be consciously experienced is shorter for people with a faster or more sensitive brain, compared to people with a slower or less sensitive brain.
Stimuli that are presented for shorter time periods are experienced more vaguely/weakly.
When neurons fire, this involves an electrical current called “action potential” that travels along the neuron (which results in the release of neurotransmitters at the other end, that either activates or inhibits the neuron connected)
The voltage of the action potential is always the same (going from -70 mV to +40mV and then going down to around -100 mV for a short period before going back to the normal state of -70mV)
The speed of the action potential differs depending on the degree to which the neuron is myelinated.
The neurons themselves have the same or similar composition, regardless of what conscious experience they are responsible for.
Visual experience can be created from the sense of touch (for example, special glasses create a pattern of touch on the tongue or the back, depending on the visual input they receive). Thus, what type of experience that arises does not depend wholly on the type of receptor that triggered the neuronal activity.
Hypotheses
Main hypothesis: frequency of spikes in electric fields is a central component in consciousness.
One possibility is that frequency of spikes in electric fields is all that is necessary for consciousness to appear, where higher frequency means stronger level of consciousness.
Another possibility is that this is just an intermediate step. For example, it could be the effect that this changing electric field has on the magnetic field, and it is instead the events in the magnetic fields that are conscious. Or it could be that the changing electric field influences quantum mechanical properties, and that it is these quantum events that are conscious.
But it is not enough to know what causes consciousness to appear in general, we also need to be able to explain why this specific conscious experience occurred. For example, what determines whether the conscious experience is a visual one vs an auditory one. What determines whether the experienced color is that of blue or of red. Given that the individual neurons themselves are the same in their composition, there is no way to explain the specific conscious experience just by looking at what neurons are firing. Where neurons do differ however, is regarding how they are connected to other neurons, in other words, the patterns they form.
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