PSYC 4600 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Pineal Gland, Andreas Vesalius, Reductionism
15 Dec 2015
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Cognition: a variety of higher mental processes such as thinking, perceiving, imagining, speaking, acting, and planning. Mind-body problem: the problem of how a physical substance (the brain) can give rise to our feelings, thoughts and emotions (our mind). Now the mind-brain problem because it is now agreed that the brain is the key part of the body for cognition physical and mortal. Dualism: the belief that mind and brain are made up of different kinds of substance. Reductionism: the belief that mind-based concepts will eventually be replaced by neuroscientific concepts. Mind-based concepts will eventually be replaced by purely biological constructs: psychology will eventually reduce to biology. Conscious experiences in particular will have the same status as phlogiston in a future theory of the brain: emotion will still feel like emotion even if we were to fully understand its neural basis. Usefulness of cognitive, mind-based concepts will never be replaced. Galen (circa ad 129-199) observed brain injury in gladiators.
