Mind and Brain (Body)
As is well known, Descartes proposed treating the mind and the body as two different substances. The cost of modern philosophy having split the universe into two different substances was the blocking of any empirical investigation about consciousness and mind. As a matter of fact, the physical world is not only causally closed but is also directly involved in all other processes of our world at any level of complexity. This does not mean that mind cannot be considered as an emergent phenomenon. In the following, both the physical and the mental will be considered as relevant.After some introductory remarks, some philosophical positions are examined. Thereafter, a solution to the problem is proposed: to consider three kinds of interactions and interconnections: mind–physical world, mind–brain, brain–physical world. The consequence of this proposal is a new understanding of the integration of mind and body. Then, some philosophical questions are raised.
Keywords: mind, brain, combinatory, token, type, supervenience, identity theory
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