The mind and its relationship to the brain have been investigated extensively in neuroscience and philosophy. However, either way of their determination raises principal problems whose solution seem rather difficult. These problems shall be called ‘mind-problems’ (see Figure 1) and are discussed either implicitly or explicitly in the ‘philosophy of mind’. Empirically, themind is determined by neuronal states, which are supposed to characterize the brain. Neuronal states of the brain are investigated empirically and related directly to different psychological and physiological functions. Meanwhile mental states can neither be investigated empirically nor related directly to neuronal states. Unlike neuronal states,mental states are not accessible in Third-Person Perspective, whichmakes their direct empirical investigation impossible. Since they are accessible in First-Person Perspective only, mental states can neither be related directly to psychological and physiological functions nor to neuronal states. Due to the inability to directly relate mental states to neuronal states, mental states cannot be detected and recognized within the brain as being characterized by neuronal states. Both problems, empirical accessibility of mental states with respect to the brain and the empirical relation between brain states and mental states remain, therefore unclear. Accordingly, one may speak of an ‘empirical mind problem’. Both subjective experience and contents of mental states cannot be detected and recognized within the neuronal states and thus within the brain. directly to the neuronal states of the brain. Neither the subjective experience, i.e., the ‘What is it like’ nor its content, i.e., the event to which the subjective experience refers, can be detected and recognized within neuronal states. If, however, mental states cannot be detected and recognized within neuronal states, they cannot be related directly to the brain itself. From this inability to relate directlymental states to neuronal states, the principal impossibility of an empirical relation between mental states and brain states as neuronal states is inferred (see also Searle 2000:566). However, the brain might be characterized not only by neuronal states exclusively but also by some other type of state as well. In this case, the inference from the inability of empirically relating mental and neuronal states to the principal impossibility of an empirical relation between mental states and brain states remains no longer necessary. The possibility of the ‘empiricalmind problem’ presupposes subsequently the empirical framework of an exclusive characterization of the brain by neuronal states. (Northoff 2004, 1–2)
Publication bibliography
Northoff, Georg (2004): Philosophy of the brain. The brain problem. Netherlands: John Benjamins Pub (Advances in consciousness research, 52).