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Lecture 24 Biological Naturalism About the Lecture Lecture 24 Biological Naturalism About the Lecture: Biological naturalism is a philosophical theory of the mind. Itputs the problem of mind-body dualism and the related context of consciousness in a new perspective. It provides a broad naturalistic framework for the explanation of consciousness and other mental phenomena. The theory is based on the hypothesis that mental phenomena are caused by and realized in the brain processes.This theory is a part of a biological worldview and this worldview is based on the theory of evolution. The human life is manifested in the evolutionary process of the universe. On the other hand, the natural aspect of the theory shows that the brain, as the central part of the human organism causes mental life. The mental life is comprised of both conscious and unconscious activities of the brain. The conscious aspects include conscious and unconscious mental states along with their basic features, like intentionality, subjectivity, free will, etc. whereas the unconscious aspects of brain signify its neurophysiological functions. Key words: Naturalism, Mind-Body Dualism, Causal Relation, Emergence, Micro and macro level. Biological naturalism as a theory of mind puts the problem of mind-body dualism and the related context of consciousness in a new perspective. It provides a broad naturalistic framework for the explanation of consciousness and other mental phenomena. The theory is based on the hypothesis that mental phenomena are caused by and realized in the brain processes. Moreover, as Searle defines his theory, “Mental phenomena are caused by the neurophysiological processes in the brain and are themselves features of the brain. To distinguish the view from many others in the field, I call it “biological naturalism”. Mental events and processes are as much a part of the biological natural history as digestion, mitosis, or enzyme secretion.”1 Let’s try to explicate the theory with its etymological meaning. The 1 John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, The MIT Press, Massachusetts, The Bradford Book, 1993, p.1 1 theory is called biological because it deals with the neurophysiology of the brain as the central part of the human organism. This theory is a part of a biological worldview and this worldview is based on the theory of evolution. The human life is manifested in the evolutionary process of the universe. On the other hand, the natural aspect of the theory shows that the brain, as the central part of the human organism causes mental life. The mental life is comprised of both conscious and unconscious activities of the brain. The conscious aspects include conscious and unconscious mental states along with their basic features, like intentionality, subjectivity, free will, etc. whereas the unconscious aspects of brain signify its neurophysiological functions. That is to say, the brain embodies a certain causal capacity to produce consciousness. And it is a part of the natural process of the brain causing consciousness and other conscious features. For instance, mitosis as a natural process in the living organism manifests the causal efficacy of a cell. That is, the continuous division of a cell helps in the very growth of a living body. And this precisely shows that there is life in the body. Similarly, the brain causing consciousness is as natural as the principle of mitosis explaining the multiple growths of cells. The growth of cells in an organism thus bears an independent function, like the brain causing consciousness. Searle’s hypothesis precisely establishes this principle, i.e., the principle of neurophysiological sufficiency. As he writes, “Whenever a mental phenomena is presented in the mind of an agentfor example, his feeling pain, thinking about philosophy or wishing he had a cold beer causally sufficient conditions for these phenomenon are entirely in the brain. And indeed the thesis that mental phenomena are caused by and realized in the brain has the consequence that, for any mental phenomena whatever, causally sufficient conditions are in the brain. Let us call this the principle of neurophysiological sufficiency.” 2 The neurophysiological sufficiency of the brain can be understood by taking not only one part of the brain processes into account, but also the various subsystems of the brain, that are working together to produce consciousness or any other mental phenomena. The subsystems in this regard are causally interconnected. The causal interrelationship shows only the causal sufficiency of the brain as a whole, causing and realizing mental phenomena. This is quite typical of the function of the brain insofar as other biological systems are concerned. Searle remarks, “I see the human brain as an organ like any other organ, as a biological system. Its special features, as far as the mind is concerned, the feature in which it differs remarkably 2 J. Searle, “Minds, Brains without Programs,” Mindwaves: Thoughts on Intelligence, Identity and Consciousness, ed. Colin Blackmore, and Susan Greenfield, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1987, p. 229. 2 from other biological organs, is its capacity to produce and sustain all of the enormous variety of our consciousness life.”3 The emergence of consciousness is a unique feature of the brain function. This feature of the brain has double functions, i.e. it both produces the mental states or conscious mental life, and at the same time it has the capacity to regenerate the conscious states. This regenerating process in the brain reveals the realization of the mental states in the brain processes. For instance, when someone is feeling hungry, he searches for food where it would be possible for him to get it. The person is not only experiencing hunger, but also believes that he can get relief from hunger only by eating the food he somehow manages to get. Here experiencing hunger is a neurophysiological process that causes the mind to get to form the belief about food. And the satisfaction that he gets after eating the food, will show the realization of his belief state. Moreover, the entire process of securing food by adopting alternative means shows the sustainable capacity of the brain. The whole, process commencing from the emergence of the mental states to its culmination in the realization states, shows that there is interdependency in the relationship between the brain and the mind. It is not just the mental and the physiological processes of the brain that are interdependent; rather the relationship is intrinsic to the very nature of the brain. The double order function of the brain has this intrinsic relationship with the mental phenomena. How does one describe this intrinsic relationship? Searle says, “The brain has an intrinsically mental level of description because in any of the given point, it is causing actual conscious events and is capable of causing further conscious events. Because the brain has both conscious and unconscious mental states we are also inclined to suppose that they are intrinsically inaccessible to consciousness.” 4 This intrinsic relationship between the neurophysiolgoical processes of the brain as a continuous source of causation of the mental states avoids mind-brain dualism. The mental and the physical do not belong to two separate realms of descriptions. Rather the neurophysiolgoical process having the capacity to generate conscious events must be understood as the higher level physical feature of the brain. There is a hierarchy in the levels of the brain function. This higher level function is accessible to the realm of mental description. In that sense, the mental is a part of the physical reality. The mental as the part of the physical is defined as having higher order relationship with each other. That is to say, the mind is emerging out of the higher neurological processes of the 3 Searle, John R. The Rediscovery of the Mind, The MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1992, p.227. 4Ibid., p.233. 3 brain organism. Searle says, “On these definitions, consciousness is a causally emergent property of the systems. It is an emergent feature of the certain systems of the neurons in the same way as solidity and liquidity are the emergent features of system of molecules. The existence of consciousness can be explained by the causal interaction of the elements of the brain at the micro level, but consciousness cannot itself be deduced or calculated from the sheer physical structure of neurons without some additional account of causal relations between them.”5 The emergence of the conscious mental states is a causal emergence. Searle has two levels of causal explanation; they are, micro level and macro level. At the micro level we have only neurons, synapses and axons carrying some physico-chemical processes. At the macro-level we have conscious mental states. This shows the embodiment of the causal properties in the neural structure of the brain. Hence the mental phenomena at the macro level are explicated by the causal function of the brain processes at the micro level. The macro level only shows the overall system functions of the neutral system. That is, in the case of human beings, we can only know what the beliefs, desires and intentional states are at the macro level. They are all called conscious states. Consciousness arises because of the causal properties of the neural configuration of the brain. The human being as an organism has a systemic structure. The causal properties of the sub-structural parts together get manifested in a certain order. Thus consciousness as a systemic feature is manifested in the conscious behaviour of the human beings. So causality is involved in both the macro and micro levels of function. To give an analogy, the solidity of the table at the level of lattice can be defined through the causal structure of the molecules at the level of lattice structure.
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