Understanding of Psycho-physical Parallelism in Neurophilosophy

Abstract

The relationship between the material and the ideal, the brain and the mind, time-space and the processes beyond, has always been a pivotal problem in philosophy, sparking multiple discussions among philosophers. Revolutionary discoveries in science and, consequently, new paradigms are causing some unrest in the field of philosophy. Widely approved philosophical concepts are being reexamined and readjusted to fit the entire scientific picture of the universe. As a result, a new field of Neurophilosophy has emerged, based on empirical research about the brain and nervous processes. According to Patricia Churchland, consciousness is the result of the functioning of various parts of the human brain. She considers consciousness to be the product of the highest nervous actions and uses the reduction method to investigate the essence of consciousness. It is not the individual that holds power over the brain, but rather the human brain that holds power over consciousness. Therefore, the decision-making process is not the result of consciousness, but rather the result of the nervous activity of the human brain, preceding the realization of the decision that had already been made. Since according to classical philosophy it is impossible to find the "self" as a physical substance, Patricia Churchland and Thomas Metzinger consider it non-existent. The concept of Kantian criticism is justified by Neurophilosophy through empirical research and goes even further. According to Metzinger, a human being is a "biorobot" resulting from genetic replication, and this is nothing but the process and concentration on selflessness, with realization being the only skill that could be seen as the primary function of a human being, as argued by his Neurophilosophy. The inquiry into the relationship between consciousness and the brain is not a novelty in the field of philosophy. Much has been written about it by philosophers such as Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, and René Descartes. The thoughts of Descartes about the relationship between consciousness and the brain could be considered the foundation or source for Neurophilosophy. Neurophilosophy, in its fascination with the discoveries in the field of science, has proclaimed human beings as fiction, instead of acknowledging them as a complex form of existence with a sophisticated system of self-consciousness. Furthermore, it has erased the entire field of intersubjective relationships. The controversies within the field of Neurophilosophy, along with the challenges that the scientific world is facing at the moment, can be explained by the fact that physiological research on the human brain is developing so rapidly that any attempt at extrapolation or making generalized assumptions is falling behind the scope of empirical data. Additionally, the results of empirical research on brain activity and neural networks are the subjects of infinite interpretation, which objectively hinders the process of establishing non-controversial theoretical concepts.