Mapping Brain Function

In Allan Jones’s presentation, A Map of the Brain, he explains his current project and why is essential to the modern day. Jones first starts off by giving the audience some background information about the brain. He states that the brain is a complex organ that receives around twenty percent of the blood from our hearts as well as twenty percent of the oxygen from our lungs. Jones explains that the brain is essential to the body because it controls everything we do. Even though the brain is very complex, it does not mean that it is not organized and structured. In the past century, scientists have created a blue stain that stains neuron bodies. This showed scientists that neurons were unevenly distributed throughout the brain depending on

In this paper, I will examine the principal merits and challenges of René Descartes’ concept of dualism and then defend my preferred alternative among the options Paul M. Churchland discusses. After briefly defining Cartesian Dualism, I will show that its principal merits are that it is consistent with common sense and that it is able to explain phenomena that appear mental in nature. Next, I will show that its principal challenges are its failure to adequately explain how the mind and the body can causally interact, and its failure to respond to the observation that brain damage impairs the mind. Finally, I will explain why Functionalism is the best alternative to Cartesian Dualism.

Mind-body dualism is usually seen as the central issue in philosophy of the mind. The problem with mind-body dualism is that it is unknown whether the mind really is a separate entity from the human body as Descartes states in his argument, or whether the mind is the brain itself. Descartes believed that in a person existed two major components, the physical body and the nonphysical body which was called the mind or soul. As a scientist, Descartes believed in mechanical theories of matter, however, he was also very religious and did not believe people could merely be mechanical creatures that ran like “clockwork.” And so, it was Descartes who argued that the mind directed thoughts. To account for this, he split the world into two parts,

I read the article, “Secrets of the Brain”, found in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic written by Carl Zimmer. I chose this subject because I have been fascinated with the brain and how it works. The research of the brain has been ongoing for many centuries now. The history in this article is interesting. It explained how scientists used to understand the brain and its inner workings. For example, “in the ancient world physicians believed that the brain was made of phlegm. Aristotle looked on it as a refrigerator, cooling of the fiery heart. From his time through the Renaissance, anatomists declared with great authority that our perceptions, emotions, reasoning, and actions were all the result of “animal spirits”—mysterious, unknowable vapors that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our bodies.” (Zimmer, p. 38)

The nineteenth century saw an explosion in knowledge regarding the brain unlike any before. For centuries, the brain had been considered the seat of human intelligence. However, the brain of the classics was a singular organ of

|  These are chemicals that transmit signals across a synapse from one neuron to another neuron. Most neurotransmitters are about the size of larger proteins or peptides.

Starting soon after the achievements of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, in 460 BC Greek medicine and treatments began to intensely develop and improve due to anatomical research. Ancient physicians and anatomists such as Erasistratus, Herophilus, Galen, and Andreas Vesalius conducted dissections on live and dead organisms to lead them to make important discoveries about the anatomy, functionality, and overall health of humans. With passing time, each person built off of their influences work by testing validity, expanding on research, and all the meanwhile making their own discovers. However, human dissection and vivisection experiments were limited due to conflicts with ethnics and the ways of the Catholic Church. There was also the

An Argument for Interactionist Dualism in Contrast to Property Dualism This philosophy study will define the importance of interactionist substance dualism as a form of dualism that makes the most appealing argument against property dualism. The polarization of substance and property dualism typically defines a separation of physical and mental states. In this context, the function of separating mental states from the physical states illustrates a complete disconnect in the strict terms of substance dualism. In contrast to this, property dualism finds that there are only physical states, but that there can only be non-physical properties of physical substances. In both cases, the disconnect of the mind/body relationships has been reduced to abstracted mental states or a division between the mind and the body.

Firstly, Wundt was the founder of psychology because he wanted to develop it as a new science, whereas Fechner had no intention of doing so. Wundt published articles, founded the first laboratory and began experimental psychology as a science. Secondly, He conducted experiments and produced 54,000 pages of output between the years of 1853 and 1920. Despite the fact that Fechner was the first to introduce the relationship between mind and body (which aided in the development of experimental psychology), he wanted to understand the concept for himself with no intention of making it public. Lastly, founding an entire science requires the integration of prior and current knowledge on the field. Wundt used Fechner’s findings and integrated newly developed material in psychology. Fechner came up with his concepts based on his personal findings.

Descartes believes that since the mind and the body are two different things, then they can exist separately. This is the theory of dualism.

This, I led me too a love of psychology. How wonderful was it that there was a whole science devoted just to that one mystical organ? Studying the brain, we can unlock the doors to human

“The mind-body dualism, in philosophy, is the fact that any theory that the mind and body are distinct kinds of substances or natures. This position implies that mind and body not only differ in meaning, but refer to different kinds of entities (Britannica).” The most basic form of dualism is substance dualism. Substance dualism is the idea that he mind and body are composed of two ontologically distinct substances. According to one who believes and studies dualism, the mind is comprised of a non-physical substance, while the body is constituted of the physical substance, also known as matter. Dualism is closely related to the philosophy of Rene Descartes. Descartes identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain. He believed that the brain was the seat of all intelligence. This lead to a great debate over the mind and body. So, ultimately, what is the nature of the mind and consciousness and its relationship to the body?

Franz Joseph Gall created the main principles of phrenology, which was the first scientific theory of brain localization. His theories were based entirely on observation and natural philosophy. Phrenology was the study of associating an individual’s personality characteristics and mental abilities based on the shape of their skull. It was incomparably influential throughout the first half of the 19th century thanks to Gall and his many successors. Some of the main tenants of phrenology were later confirmed by scientific experiments and technology.

The human brain is a mystery that has been studied for centuries in attempt to understand how it functions. Scientists first thought that the brain was a structure that functioned a whole. It was in the early 1600’s where the first ideas of localisation of function in the brain started. At this time Rene Descartes discovered a tiny structure called the pineal

The poem “The Brain is Wider Then the Sky” by Emily Dickinson, written in 1862. Emily Dickinson was a woman who never married. She lived with her parents in Amherst Massachusetts. Emily believed in feminist. She came from a very church going family but as she got older she stopped going to church. She was a very smart woman. She attended college at Amherst Academy. Her father was the founder of Amherst Academy, which today is called Amherst College. Amherst college is still a well know college in Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson started a book club involving multiple friends, as well as her loving attentiveness to individuals in times of both suffering and joy.