Tell me more ×
Cognitive Sciences Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for practitioners, researchers, and students in cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite
2

I've heard countless discussions about whether or not the mind is separate from the brain, but they have all been philosophical.

I am looking for peer-reviewed studies that suggest the mind is not just a by-product of the brain, as I feel this is quite an extraordinary claim.

Are there any such studies?

share|improve this question
1  
Oops, I thought I was still on Phil.SE. *goes to sleep* :P – stoicfury Aug 1 '12 at 20:23
well now it never happened – degausser Aug 1 '12 at 20:26

2 Answers

up vote 16 down vote

Another approach to this issue is to consider whether this kind of reductionism ("mind is just a by-product of the brain") is useful. Strictly speaking, architecture is "just a by-product of physics and materials science", but there are phenomena that are usefully described at the level of architecture and would not be well-captured by the atomic and molecular properties that underlie them. The same holds for the mind and brain: we can study the neural correlates of psychological phenomena and these studies are sure to help us understand those phenomena, but they are not logically equivalent. This view has been articulated by many people, here is one (peer-reviewed) example: Miller, G.A. & Keller, J. (2000). Psychology and Neuroscience: Making Peace. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(6), 212-215. You don't need to be a dualist to hold this view, just to understand that phenomena can have different levels of analysis.

share|improve this answer
1  
this is a great answer. Sometimes people take reductionism too far and too seriously. – Artem Kaznatcheev Aug 2 '12 at 14:09
Thank you very much @Dan. I will check this out and as soon as I have enough reputation to up vote this I will do so – degausser Aug 2 '12 at 14:29
There's non-reductive physicalism and reductive physicalism. There's no need for non reductive dualism, really, the whole point of non reductive physicalism is that emergence can explain consciousness without there being new physics. Dualism with non reduction doesn't really make sense, since reductionism is a physicalist property. – Xurtio Aug 2 '12 at 15:54
@Dan Just reading this over again. I suppose a similar metaphor to oppose yours would be the following. You can study how a computer appears to operate by giving it input from its various devices and seeing what it does, and if you would like to know how to operate a computer that's great. The only problem is the user would argue that he indeed knows how a computer works, while someone who has taken apart the machine would scoff at such a statement. By taking apart the machine, the person can observe its inner workings as well as deduce how an outside influence could manipulate the machine. – degausser Aug 6 '12 at 16:21
Keep in mind that the person peering inside the machine can provide very little guidance about webpage design or statistical analysis or many other functions that matter to the user. From that perspective, he has no idea how the computer works. David Marr (1982, Vision) is typically credited with articulating this functional independence between the "computational" (what it does), "algorithmic" (how it does it), and "implementational" (hardware) levels of analysis. – Dan M. Aug 6 '12 at 20:13
show 3 more comments
up vote 8 down vote

Note: one can never prove a negative. It's hard to say "there's no evidence" as an absolute truth. That being said:

No. All evidence is suggestive of monism. Drugs and brain lesions are physical actions that influence cognitive outcome by physically affecting the brain in ways predicted by pharmacists and neuropsychology. It could also be noted that physical activity (exercise) increases neurogenesis.

When you find an argument that recedes to only being valid in philosophy, it is probably becoming closer to pseudoscience than science. You can never prove something like solipsism is false, but it isn't a very productive belief if you're asking for evidence. Solipsism (as an example) would invalidate the evidence, so there's no point in asking for evidence if that's your perspective.

However, if you accept empiricism (which is all that science can rely on) then you have to accept some degree of scientific realism, and the scientific evidence is that brain causes mind.

share|improve this answer
Thanks for the answer. I will say, though, that saying "there is no evidence" is always perfectly valid if humans have not yet come across the answer. Where you would fall into trouble with trying to prove a negative is if you said something was definitively "impossible". – degausser Aug 1 '12 at 20:08
For sure absolutely no studies though? – degausser Aug 1 '12 at 20:10
2  
You're question, qualified with "for sure absolutely" makes me think that you still don't understand the difficulty of proving a negative. Even with your previous qualifier, "humans have not come across the answer" is hard to prove. I'm just one person, I can't speak for all humans. I can't say "for sure absolutely no studies" and no one human can. There's lots of studies out there. All you will ever have is a lack of evidence or a lack of people reporting there's no such studies. Though I can't even see how you'd even devise a test to prove mind and brain are separate. – Xurtio Aug 1 '12 at 21:06
I do appreciate the answer, but the obliqueness is completely unnecessary and slightly obnoxious as it was a straight forward question. Peer reviewed studies are all recorded and would be archived. I am wondering if anyone has heard of anything worth investigating – degausser Aug 1 '12 at 21:16
I also do not know of any such studies. Slightly obnoxious or not, @Xurtio did so for good reason, I think. I know a lot about certain psychological constructs, but even on areas I consider myself expert, I could never claim to come close to knowing the entire literature. Studies published in other languages are not always translated. Old studies are not necessarily published online (although many are). And all of that does not even get into the issue that multiple keywords may be used for the same general idea. – Joshua Aug 2 '12 at 1:48
show 3 more comments

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.