… [People] occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off...
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Transcript of … [People] occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off...
… [People] occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Setting the stage for Cognitive Neuroscience
Important events in history:• Scientific revolution• Dualism v. Monism• Darwin’s Dangerous Idea• The Golden Age of Neuropsychology• Ramon y Cajal• Antecedents of modern era
Scientific Revolution
Scholasticism vs. Empiricismauthority vs. direct observation of the
phenomena Mechanism vs. Animism Falsifiability Precision, mathematical tools Openness, peer-review Skepticism Parsimony
Dualism vs. Monistic Materialism
• Dualism defined• Problems with Cartesian dualism
- interaction?- simplicity?
• de la Mettrie and Hobbes 1700’s
So, if nearly every neuroscientist has given uppursuing dualist accounts, why is the idea sopersistent?
Is it persistent?
EcclesPenroseSheldrakevision
Predicate dualismProperty dualismSubstance dualism(InteractionismEpiphenomenalismPsychophysical parallelism)
Assignment:Find on-line one interesting argument againstMind-Brain identity to present.
Nagel's (1986) Position
"The subjective features of conscious mental processes... cannot be captured by the purified form of thought suitable for dealing with the physical world that underlies appearances... mental states - however objective their content - must be capable of manifesting themselves in subjective form to be in mind at all."
Four events in the 19th Century paved the way
• Mind-brain identity evidence- phrenology- brain damaged patients- Broca, Alzheimer, Wernicke
• Darwin’s theory of evolution
Ventricular Doctrine:
Localization of mental faculties to the ventricles
First Ventricle: Integration of sensory information; Fantasy & Imagination.
Ventricular Doctrine:
Localization of mental faculties to the ventricles
First Ventricle: Integration of sensory information; Fantasy & Imagination.
Second Ventricle: Cognitive processes – reasoning; judgement
Ventricular Doctrine:
Localization of mental faculties to the ventricles
First Ventricle: Integration of sensory information; Fantasy & Imagination.
Second Ventricle: Cognitive processes – reasoning; judgement
Third Ventricle: Memory
Franz Joseph Gall & J. C. Spurzheim – localization of different psychological functions to different regions of the cerebral cortex (late 1700’s – early 1800’s)
Franz Joseph Gall & J. C. Spurzheim – localization of different psychological functions to different regions of the cerebral cortex (late 1700’s – early 1800’s)
- phrenology
Understanding the Relationship Between Brain and Behavior
The brain hypothesis: functional specialization or distribution?
1810
Darwin’s theory of evolution
Any trait shows variation in a population Within an environment, some varieties are
favored (or selected) such that they have more offspring compared to other varieties
If any of the variation is inherited, then the selected variant will spread through the population
Novelty of Darwin’s idea
Importance of geological time No purpose, goal Makes plausible human integration with
the rest of nature Makes plausible comparative studies Integrates with modern genetics Processes can be adaptive
Is the brain & therefore the mind functionally organized? Yes. The brain is a physical system that transforms other physical systems in very specific ways.
Four events in the 19th Century paved the way
Mind-brain identity evidence- phrenology
- brain damaged patients- Broca, Alzheimer, Wernicke
Darwin’s theory of evolution Wilhelm Wundt founds first laboratory
in Leipzig 1879s Ramon y Cajal’s conclusions
Neuron Hypothesis
Golgi
Ramon y Cajal
• Functional segregation begins at the neuronal (cellular) level.
TOP TEN LIST: Reasons for avoiding brain-mind identity theory
10. It is repugnant to believe that we are only a relatively unimpressive, but pretty fancy piece of meat.
9. It is a well known fact that we only use 10% of our brain, so it is more or less useless.
8. Almost our whole cultural heritage (including mommy and daddy) tell us that we are actually a litte spirit only temporarily residing on this comparatively rotten planet.
7. When we have a thought about a unicorn, it is not located in a specific location or time and is about something that doesn’t exist; our brain events occur in a specific location and time and definitely exist.
6. If you take it seriously you must learn about things like molecular genetics, neurophysiology, and other biophysical things that seemed too hard in undergraduate school.
5. Neuroscientists do not make much money (and their books are not popular).
4. Reductionism is politically incorrect (and always has been).
3. Didn’t the antiphrenologists and Karl Lashley and a host of others show that brain (or cortical) organization was irrelevant for psychology?
2. This whole business isn’t “really” psychology or neuroscience, but rather part of somebody else’s program - eventually they will figure it out and tell us the answer.
1. If you really believe it, you would have to hang around with people like Kolb, Whishaw, Prusky, or Sutherland.