The Mind-Body Problem

Monism Materialism: Everything is Physical

Idealism: Everything is Mental

Dualism Interactionism: Mind & Body Influence Each Other

Epiphenomenalism: Mental Events are By-Products of Physical Experience

Psychophysical Parallelism: Outside Event causes Mental & Physical Responses, but They are Independent of Each Other

Double Aspectism: Person cannot be divided; Mind & Body do not interact but they cannot be separated

Preestablished Harmony: Mind & Body are different, but are coordinated and synchronized by some external agent (God?)

Occasionalism: Intervening Agent (God) changes one realm following changes in the other

Dominant Views of Mind-Body Problem in Psychology

Experimental Psychology– Epiphenomenalism– Materialistic Monism

Humanistic-Existential Psychology– Interactionism

The Architecture of the Human Mind

Perspectives on the “Mind”

*The mind is what the brain does.

*The mind is not one thing, but rather a collection of things.

*The mind has been shaped by the process of natural selection, just as other organs have.

*“Consciousness” is a by-product of brain activity, and it is not essential to most functions of the mind.

Two Current Views of the Mind

vs.

Standard Social Science Model of the Mind

The Mind is a content-free, general-purpose learning mechanism.

The “Specialized Mentality” Model of the Mind

The mind consists of multiple, content-rich, Domain-specific mental modules

Narrow slices of environmental information areprocessed by specific modules, & modules dealwith specific adaptive problems.

Evolution favored a highly specialized mind to Meet the challenges presented by the physical &Social world.

The mind is an organ that has been shaped by natural selection.

Survival was too precious to be trusted to “Consciousness” and trial-and-error general learning!

Domains of the Mind* General-Purpose learning

* Language

* Social Intelligence

* Technical Intelligence

* Natural History Intelligence

Specific Psychological Mechanisms that are Modules of the Mind

Expression of Emotion through Facial Expressions

Mechanisms for “Reading” Facial Expressions of Emotion

A Predisposition to Learn to Fear Things that Posed Danger in the Ancestral Environment such as Heights, Snakes, Spiders, & Deep Water

Language Acquisition Mechanisms

Mate Preference Modules

Sexual Jealousy Mechanisms

Kin-Recognition Mechanisms

Modules for Forming Social Contracts with Others

Specific Psychological Mechanisms that are Modules of the Mind

Modules for Categorizing Plants, Animals, and Other People

Innate Conceptions of Space, Time, and Motion

Modules for Orienting and Navigating through the Environment

Module for Forming Moral Beliefs

Mechanisms for Detecting Deception and Betrayal

Modules for Processing Numerical Information and Music

Incest Avoidance Modules

Hemispheres of the Brain

Hemispheres of the Brain

Evolution of “Consciousness”

Evolution of Consciousness*There is evidence for a sudden new “cognitive fluidity” in humans about 60,000 years ago.

*This new “consciousness” allowed information from one domain to be utilized by mechanisms from other domains.

*This new organization of the mind allowed for self-reflection, anthropomorphic thinking, and other abilities that may have been responsible for the beginnings of culture, art, religion, and an unprecedented explosion of technology.

*Hence, it may have been possible that other primates and early humans may not have been conscious in the modern sense of the word; their separate domains of intelligence operated completely independently of each other.

Some Psychological Disorders Due to Brain

Damage

Aphasia - Language Problems

Broca’s Aphasia (Speaking) Wernicke’s Aphasia (Comprehension)

Alexia (Reading)

Agraphia (Writing)

Anomia (Naming)

Acalculia (Math Operations)

Agnosia - Recognition Problems

Object Agnosia Amusia (Tones) Prosopagnosia (Faces)

Movement Agnosia Astereognosia (Touch)

Neglect Syndrome

Kluver-Bucy Syndrome Hypersexuality Lack of Emotion Compulsive Oral

Exploration Psychic Blindness

Milner’s Syndrome & Korsakov’s Syndrome

A Complete Inability to transfer New Information into Long-Term Memory

CONCLUSIONS:

*The mind is what the brain does.

*The human mind is collection of mechanisms, not a single entity.

*The mind is a biological organ that has evolved to meet survival/reproductive problems.

*“Consciousness” is a by-product of brain activity, and it is not essential to most functions of the mind.