KARL JASPERS FORUM

SHORT NOTE 83

MODELING BRAIN ACTIVITY, NOT THE MIND
by Herbert FJ Müller
25 October 2006, posted 28 October 2006

(Updated 1 / 4 November 2006)

The title of this note contradicts a subtitle ('Modeling the Mind') of the 6 October 2006 issue of Science. It has a special section (p.75) entitled 'Of Bytes and Brains', which accurately characterizes the content of its three review articles (Modeling Single Neuron-Dynamics; Neuronal Computations with Stochastic Network States; and Biologically Based Computational Models of High-Level Cognition).

However, in a side column (also on p.75), the title 'Modeling the Mind' appears, without explanation (as if it meant the same as 'Of Bytes and Brains'); it takes over as the running Section title, and makes its way onto the front cover as well.

'Minds' are subjective, encompassing, and operate from an unstructured center, as has been often discussed in KJF. They cannot become objects, nor can they be modeled. The equation of mind with brain is a common error, but one would have hoped that the editors of Science stayed clear of this conceptual trap, the core of the so-called mind-brain (or consciousness) problem.

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Herbert FJ Müller

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P.S, 1 Nov 2006. The above note was sent to Science as a letter (in slightly modified form). The editors answered to the effect that the note would not be printed in Science; no explanation given.

My interpretation is that they do not see a problem, or anything in need of discussion, in their view that mind = brain (implying that the mind is mind-independent reality). This is not surprising, because it corresponds to the prevalent view of natural scientists, and materialist philosophers of mind. The task for constructivism comes in at this point (see for instance my TA45 in KJF).

HFJM