What is the mind (/ soul)? What is its nature? And what is the mind's relationship to the brain (2)
What are you as a human? (part 5)
On previous posts, we got to the point of realising that there are things that are true of our mental states that are not true of our brain states, therefore mental states are not identical to brain states and the mind is not identical to the brain.
As was seen the evidence from ‘qualia’ and ‘intentional states’ counters the popular assumption that the mind is just the brain. But if the mind is not the brain, so not made of physical atoms, what is it? What is its nature? And what is the relationship, then, of the mind to the brain?
As a way into such questions, have a go at this:
Take a moment to be still and become aware of all that’s going on around you – the colours, the sounds, your feelings, your thoughts; As much as you can, allow yourself to become consciously aware of what’s happening around, and inside of you…
Whilst potentially sounding like the beginning of a mindfulness seminar, the reason for starting the post in this way is to make you aware of the unity of your consciousness – that is, whilst we experience all kinds of colours, desires, intentions etc. at any one time, they all appear to us as a unified whole. We hear, for example, the sound of cars going past, whilst feeling the temperature of our room, whilst desiring (maybe) to ponder this post – all of these mental states can naturally occur at one time, as a unity. Put another way, rather than us just experiencing one colour at one moment, followed by another at the next, followed by one sound, followed by another, then a feeling of warmth, then a feeling of confusion, in conscious experience we experience all kinds of these mental states together – we are conscious of them as a unity. This, in one sense, seems unextraordinary – unified consciousness is everyday reality for us. But when you think of what it is that is experiencing this unified consciousness, it reveals a deeper aspect to us than we might think.
The Unity of Consciousness
We know the brain is an extremely complex organ made up of many parts and at any one time, different parts of the brain are processing different sensations, beliefs, intentions (etc.) we might be aware of. The visual cortex might be processing the colour green, the limbic circuit processing memory (beliefs) of the past, the hippocampi processing feelings of contentment, and at any one time, all kinds of areas of the brain will be active in helping us to experience all that we are around us. Yet there is no one part of the brain that itself experiences all of these things as a unity. There is no one region of the brain in which all of these things are appeared to as a unified whole. So, what is it of us that is the ‘experiencer’ or ‘bearer’ of consciousness that experiences these things as a unified whole? What is it that is the ‘self’ or ‘subject’ that experiences as a unity what the different parts of the brain are handling in its parts? The answer is what some would call the mind, others the ‘soul’. It is the ‘individual’ / the ‘subject’ - the very core and centre of you - that experiences everything as a unity. Consider, for a moment, an analogy. Imagine a business or a company that has many different departments - all of which focussing on their area of expertise and processing their specific data. There might be the finance department, or the marketing department, HR, cleaning, catering, training and development – all departments focussing on a particular area. But the person who’s able to see the big picture, how the individual departments function as part of the whole, is the CEO of the company – the overseer of the organisation, and through the work of, and communication from the different departments, s/he is the subject who’s aware of what’s going on in the company as a whole. S/he is the individual that sees the big picture, the individual who has conscious awareness of the company in its entirety. It’s the same with the human soul; it’s the individual, the ‘self’, the experiencer of consciousness, that is informed by the processing of the parts of the brain, and so able to experience consciousness as a unified whole.
The mind / soul is distinct from, whilst ordinarily functionally dependent upon, the brain, but unlike the brain, is not composed of parts – it’s a single (‘simple’1) entity that is the ‘self’ / ‘individual’ that experiences consciousness as a whole. The soul is the experiencer, or ‘seat’ of consciousness, that is aware of the big picture, and likewise, is the seat from which we make decisions and act in the world. It is the self, the individual, the ‘I’ that experiences the world through the brain and body, and which acts on the world through the brain and body.
The role of the brain in the functioning of the mind / soul
On the above view the brain might therefore be described as the mechanism or instrument of the soul - the apparatus by which the soul experiences and acts on the world. If the brain gets damaged, then (ordinarily) the soul cannot fully function, because the brain (and then body) is the soul’s vehicle for experiencing and acting in the world. (Like the limitations a car driver experiences when the car that they’re driving has been damaged).
Take for example, the infamous story of the head-teacher, who was a respected member of society, and responsible head of his school, until stories of his sexual misconduct arose. Being eventually prosecuted for sexual advances towards his step-daughter, it turned out that previously to that, he had been engaging in pornography for a while, had cheated on his wife a number of times, and that this life of sexual immorality had steadily been growing. On the day before he was due to be sent to prison, he complained of headaches and, fearing a burning desire to sexually assault his landlady, he went into hospital for scans, the scans showing traces of abnormality on his brain. On closer scrutiny, it was discovered that he had a tumour growing on his brain, the growth of which correlated with the change observed in the man’s (im)moral behaviour of these latter years. Once the tumour was removed, his sexual conduct improved, and his character returned to what it was before he’d started acting inappropriately. A few years later, the misconduct began to return, at which point he was taken into hospital again, to discover that again, the tumour had started growing back. It turned out that endemic to his demise in character was this tumour that repressed certain inhibitors in his brain, meaning that the desire to carry out his actions due to ‘the pleasure they brought him’ out-weighed any sense of whether it was right or wrong, what society would think of him, or the longer-term effect of doing his actions. Because these particular receptors were damaged / impeded, what the man believed to be important or right, changed, as his mental states of moral belief decreased in prominence in his character, and his pangs (short-term desires) for sex became more prominent. To use the car analogy, the gauges on the dashboard were clearly malfunctioning, leading to the breaking of the law in his driving. The brain (and body) is the vehicle or apparatus, that effects and is acted upon by, the soul; the soul being the ‘I’, or ‘self’, which experiences and acts in the physical world through the apparatus of the brain.
As another analogy, the nobel laureate for brain science, John Eccles described the relationship of the soul to the brain as being like that of a pianist to the piano.2 The pianist uses the instrument to make music, but if the piano gets damaged, then the pianist cannot make the music she wants to. The pianist herself might not be damaged (though this can happen, which is why the car illustration might be slightly stronger in illustrating the reciprocity of driver and car [the driver can be damaged in the crash]), but it is the instrument that is not functioning as wanted, therefore the music doesn’t sound as she intends. In ordinary instances, there is a functional dependence of the soul upon its brain, in order for the soul to experience, and operate properly.
But whilst relating intimately to the brain, it is the soul which is the very centre of our being – that is the essential ‘I’ of the person. Unlike the brain, it is not physical, it is mental – or, in different terms, it is not material, it is immaterial (that is, it is nonphysical / of a spirit substance). This is the conclusion come to based on the ‘qualia’ and ‘intentionality’ of certain mental states (looked at in the previous chapter), and the unity of consciousness, looked at above. But as will be seen in following posts, there are also further findings which affirm the soul’s reality, and also help to further our understanding of its nature.
‘Simple’ being the term philosophers use for meaning ‘not made up of parts’.
J.C. Eccles and K. Popper, The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism (London and New York: Routledge, 1977) p.495.