Eliminative Materialism and the Problem of Mind-Brain Identity.

Abstract

The Cartesian anxiety brought the tasks for humans to search the thoughts of ‘who am I’ comes from? Again, from where such impression called ‘thinking’ happens to take place in human mind or brain? While thinking of something to have (desire) or ought to have (belief) and thinking of someone to love (intention) or thinking of survival to live (fear) etc., will find some place to reside? Where do all such phenomena occur in human extensions, i.e. in brain, or in human thought, i.e. in mind? If humans are psychological, they are obviously biological too, and possess different traits to actualize the world. Is it, merely a dilemma that humans are just automation or otherwise? Humans are generally observed to imitate what they acquire from their surroundings. The surroundings eventually begin when the limbs of humans begin to work, because they become conscious to their sensations. The sensory receptors and their functions work in physical environments, but how do they respond (with freewill or determinism) is still an epistemological gap in the philosophical psychology. This is why working of mind/brain has remained out of reach to human understanding and is termed as metaphysical, psychological, or neurological. Whatever we may call it, neuroscience in some sense is exploring all such impeccable facts for human understanding. Although mind and brain have different syntax in literal sense, but both qualify for analogue in semantics of folk psychology. For identity theorists like Place, Smart, Feigl and Armstrong, mind is brain to understand it through folk psychology, whereas eliminativists like Rorty, Feyerabend, Quine, Stitch and Churchlands take show stern actions against folk psychology. They eliminate the ‘mind’ and make the ‘brain’ a scientific study. There are many other speculations and views, but our thesis focuses especially on the theories of mind-brain identity theorists and eliminative materialists, as both are great contenders of neuroscience. The central contention of this dissertation is for eliminative materialism that the mind-brain identity theory is problematic and acts as a striking element of hindrance in the explanation of neurological sciences. We will use this conclusion to evaluate Churchland’s proposal that folk psychology’s elimination is possible because of scientific theories, since both deal with mind and brain in their theories. Moreover, how neurophilosophy generates various kinds of beings like postmodernist in the cynical or well-being aspects?