Mind Brain Physics

February 16th, 2008 Fred McVittie Posted in Brain, Cognition, Consciousness, Embodiment, Evolution, Mind, Naive Physics, Neuroscience |

The account provided by neuroscience for how the brain performs the many functions it does are complex to an incredible degree. What’s more, many of the processes and mechanisms that are cited in these explanations are not only difficult to understand but are effectively impossible to understand in a literal embodied way. For example, it is distinctly possible that quantum mechanical processes are involved, if Penrose and Hammeroff are to be believed, in which case this part of the cognitive process is beyond our intuitive grasp.

The likelihood of the brain’s functioning being non-comprehensible in this literal way is not routinely regarded as a problem for science, as we have strategies for gaining knowledge about even the most non-intuitive systems. Confirmation of this can be found in the success of quantum physics more generally, which provides enormous explanatory power despite its reliance on mathematics for the conveyance of these explanations, rather than the flesh and blood language of intuitive common sense. Investigation of the brain therefore uses all of the tools of modern science, and is not restricted by the limitations of our embodied understanding.

Explanations of the mind, however, seem unable to transcend this limitation. All models of the mind seem locked into a requirement that explanations for mental function (as opposed to brain function) be intuitively evident and available to routine comprehension. This is perhaps inevitable since, given that the (conscious) mind is a product of evolutionary forces aimed at maximising the survival potential of medium-sized social mammals moving at medium speed (to paraphrase Dawkins), the ability of that mind to represent the world, including itself, would only need to address those concerns. Since our ability to intuitively apprehend anything is constrained by this precondition, any model of mind we feel intuitively satisfied with would be similarly constrained. We should expect that models of mind be easily visualisable, and probably follow laws of physics which correspond to Naive or Folk Physics or some version of the Newtonian. What’s more, it is likely that the mind itself, again for good evolutionary reasons, functions in a way which corresponds to this embodied paradigm. If the mind is an organ (or set of organs) produced by evolution which represents and allows for an effective engagement with a largely Newtonian world, then that mind, as part of the world, would need to be similarly Newtonian in structure.