Mind-Body Theories

If feelings of stress do, indeed, influence our health, then we must explain how mental perceptions influence biochemical, and then physical, processes in our bodies.  The impact of emotions, or of the mind, on the body has been a topic of fascination, debate and dispute for centuries.  There are many theories, often taking opposed viewpoints, on this issue.

Studies of stressful life events indicate that it is not merely a change that is stressful for a person, but that meaning of the change is important: its predictability, its controllability, and the implications it holds. Hence, physiological reactions appear to respond not to the mere fact of a change, but to its interpretation. If we are to examine biological responses to life events or social circumstances, we must include an examination of the role of the mind.

Mind concerns the core of our identity: consciousness, persona and soul. Three levels are normally distinguished: awareness (the ability to perceive and respond to stimuli), the conscious mind (our emotional reactions to those stimuli and our intelligent behaviour), and the self-conscious mind (knowing that one knows). The world is as we perceive it, and some authors contrast three levels of reality: the world of all physical objects (including our brains); world 2 includes of conscious experiences, memories and planned actions and, finally, world 3 includes culture and creativity.

One of the philosophical difficulties of defining mind is that the mind has no direct access to the body, but all interactions are mediated by the brain. In effect, mind-brain is the issue, not mind-body. Practically every major thinker in history has addressed the nature of the relation between mind and brain. As with much of the rest of this course, the subjectivist and materialist approaches to the analysis of mind take contrasting perspectives. In a materialist perspective (e.g., Gilbert Ryle) , mind and brain interact closely, but the brain has mastery and the mind comprises mental experiences that accompany brain activity; world 1 is the main element. Variants include "panpsychism", in which all matter has an internal mental representation, which is an integral and influential part of the matter. By contrast, in "epiphenomenalism" mental states exist and reflect physical events, but are causally irrelevant.

In dualist theories, mind and brain are quite separate; this began with Plato and was continued by Christian philosophers. For Descartes the two worlds are separate; he proposed a metaphor of two clocks which kept the same time, but separately. Descartes also argued that both mind and brain are guided by the laws of physics; there is no need to refer to a soul.

In Dualist-Interactionism, the brain and mind are independent entities (worlds 1 and 2) but interact.

The location of mind introduces the limbic system....

Links to   Society for Neuroscience briefing on mind-body link (a very nice little introductory explanation);  University of Rochester review article

 

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