Conclusion: No Gap to Mind

Abstract

Since Descartes first put it in the machine, not many philosophers have attempted to get the ghost out. In contemporary physicalism and functionalism, we find the idea that whatever we think or do must have first been processed in some way. This, in itself, would be trivially acceptable if the process were not posited as explanatory. If, that is, it were a mere mechanical description of what happens in our bodies when we speak or move, a description having no significant link with why we speak or move — with our (particular) reasons for saying ‘Good morning’ or waving goodbye. But according to Physicalists and Functionalists, our thinking and acting are not only causally dependent on some hardware, be it a neurological or functional (computer-like) framework, they are grounded on it, or reducible to it. The brain is not merely one of the vital organs without which we cannot live, and therefore think or act, it is — unlike the heart or the liver — the very source of our acting and thinking. Not simply a mechanical enabler, the brain is the generator of our wills, desires, intentions and actions. Of course the outside world has some impact on us (e.g. I see an apple), but in order for the body to react, this impact must be translated or transmuted into something that can trigger a move. A belief (e.g. ‘This is an apple’) or will (e.g. ‘I want this apple’) is therefore posited as the reason that causes the body to move (e.g. ‘I reach out for the apple’).

For the most part, we act unreflectively, as do lions.

Richard Jeffrey 1985, ‘Animal Interpretation’