Consciousness and mind/body problem- Not finished but here's what I have so far

     Rene Descartes gave us his Rule’s for Guiding One’s Intelligence in 1628 and his Discourse on Method in 1637, opening a brand new scope into the world of thought, the self and consciousness. Although he outlines his steps to achieve truths and understanding, I cannot help but feel a bit perplexed. Descartes, a dualist, believes the mind and body are separate which I also believe, however, he seems to have a more straight forward approach to his rules and steps than what I can understand. Granted I feel his application was to explain how to achieve absolute truths more so in the scientific disciplines in the pursuit of knowledge, however we cannot ignore the more ‘humanistic’ or subjective side of consciousness as applied to our own feelings and emotions. This is not to say Descartes did not address the notions of feelings and emotions, however there seems to be more questions than answers when it comes to accepting some of his theory, thus producing the mind-body problem. 

     Descartes explanation of thought can be seen in Rule Three of his Rule’s for Guiding Ones Intellegence, ‘(w)e can arrive at knowledge of things by means of two paths, viz. by experience or deduction. It should also be noted that experience of things are often deceptive, whereas a deduction- or the pure inference of one thing from another- may be overlooked if it is not apparent, but it can never be performed badly by a minimally rational intellect. The chains of dialectics, by which they think they can regulate human, reason, seem to me to be of little use for deduction, although I do not deny that they are very appropriate for other purposes. No deception that can occur to human beings ever results from a poor inference, but only from the fact that various experiences that are poorly understood are accepted, or rash judgements are made without any foundations.’ (Descartes, p.120-121) In context, Descartes is rationalizing the difference between obtaining knowledge from arithmetic and geometry verse other disciplines stating the fore mentioned are free from every 'taint of falsehood or uncertainty' due to their nature as disciplines. If this is so, and our experience can dictate our knowledge of something outside of these more concrete disciplines, then how can we ever really know what is true? As humans I feel it is near impossible to use deduction either exclusively or the majority of the time when doing anything. Our experiences are what we base so much of our understanding and decisions on. We are emotional creatures that somehow posses a higher level of awareness that allows us to make decisions, experience feelings, express original ideas, etc. all due to this abstract thing we posses called consciousness. So what exactly is consciousness? What shapes and forms it? How does it exist? If it resides in our brains (body) yet is separate from our mind, then how are we ‘controlled’ by it? We as humans often misunderstand the world, assume a lot from a small amount of information and imply our own beliefs on the decisions we make whether they are grounded in ‘truths’ or not. How can something so abstract as consciousness be so fragile and misguiding at times when it is the key tool in our tool belt that allows us to experience, interact and manipulate our reality? For example, photons received by the cells in our retinas are then passed by the optic nerve to our brains where images are formed, yet it is consciousness that allows us to understand and decide what to do with this information. Therefore, what makes consciousness so speculative and why can it be so difficult to alter aspects of our own self that consciousness seems to control or influence in some way, such as emotions or depression and anxiety?

This prompts me to wonder is there some correlation between mind and body then? Is there some connection between the physical and non physical? Naturalism or a naturalistic approach would led one to the possibility of a unified theory or a reductionist view which holds that not only is there a connection between mind and body but that mental states can be reduced to brain states. (Churchland, 277). However, in order to test this theory and see if indeed mental states can be reduced to brain states, we must first define which theories of mental states and brain states are being considered for reduction. This is where the lines already begin to blur. Although there has been exceedingly more research and discovery in recent decades into the discipline of scientific psychology, we have yet to truely understand and/or define functions such as memory, learning, perception, development, language use, etc. (Churchland, p. 295). Nor do we understand fully the cognitive and sensorimotor workings of the brain organ. So if we cannot clearly define the terms to be reduced, then how can we be sure of the reduction? Skeptics of the reduction view commonly point out this problem and tend to fall into one of two categories. Some, referred by Churchland as boggled skeptics, simply argue that the brain and it’s countless neurons are just too complicated and that we will never be able to fully unlock and understand its functions and capabilities thus discounting the reductionist view. Others, coined principled skeptics, hold the view that, ‘the generalizations of psychology are emergent with respect to the generalization of neuroscience and that mental states and processes constitute a domain of study autonomous with respect to neuroscience.’ (Churchland, p. 317). As pointed out, there are some issues with the reductionist theory of consciousness and the mind-body problem, so where does that take us?

Studies into neurology and neuropharmacology have shown the ‘abstract’ parts of the mind such as consciousness, reasoning, personality traits, etc. can all be effected or altered in some way if the brain undergoes an injury such as a lesion or is under the influence of a substance. For example, there are countless drugs out there now doctors can prescribe to alter behavior (i.e. mood disorders, depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTDS, etc.) that have a direct effect on the behavior, thought process, sometimes even auditory and visual sensations experienced by there patients. This would suggest the correlation between mind and body is not as separate as dualist would theorize. Yet how can a physical thing have an effect on a nonphysical thing such as a medication that alters brain chemistry leading to altered behavior in consciousness? It can also be said that the nonphysical effects the physical. What caused the patient to seek out a medication to alter their mind state in the first place? Did they realize their perceptions, experience, feelings, thoughts were not ‘normal’ (I do not like using the term normal as it is so vague and undefinable but for the sake of my point I must proceed with it) and thus the nonphysical consciousness led them to physically make an appointment, go see a healthcare professional and eventually take a physical pill to help? The unfortunate reality is when it comes to mental health, medication expectations are roulette wheel. It takes countless trial and error in order to find which combinations will best work for each specific individual. There is no magic box to put people in that scans the brain and tells you exactly which chemical needs adjusting and which medication will produce the best results for the desired change, although there are MRI and fMRI studies that are looking to do just that. Yet there clearly is a change in brain state and mental state when under the influence of certain substances.

In his book The Feelings of What Happens, Antonio Damasio makes several cases as to why this correlation between mind and body is not only needed but key to our existence. “For example, work from my laboratory has shown that emotion is integral to the processes of reasoning and decision making, for worse or for better. This may sound a bit counterintuitive, at first, but there is evidence to support it. The findings come from the study of several individuals who were entirely rational in the way they ran their lives up to the time when, as a result of neurological damage in specific sites of their brains, they lost a certain class of emotions and, in a momentous parallel development, lost their ability to make rational decisions… I have suggested that the delicate mechanism of reasoning is no longer affected, non consciously and on occasion even consciously, by signals hailing from the neural machinery that underlies emotion. This hypothesis is known as the somatic-marker hypothesis, and the patients who led me to propose it had damage to selected areas in the prefrontal region, especially in the ventral and medial sectors, and in the right parietal regions.” (Damasio, p. 41). These studies stem from Damasio’s core belief that emotions are an integral part of maintaining homeostatic regulation which is a necessary component to not only consciousness but to the logic of survival itself. The amazing thing is, through several case studies such as the good-guy/ bad-guy experiment Damasio presents on pages 43-49 shows that not only can our emotions be programmed unconsciously through experience, but we also cannot stop them (emotions meaning that which can be observed by others in us and us in others as opposed to feelings which we experience internally and individually but others do not experience). 

Works Cited

Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy: toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. The MIT Press, 2015.

Damasio, Antonio R. The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. Harvest, 2000.

Descartes René, and Desmond M. Clarke. Discourse on Method and Related Writings. Penguin Books, 2003.