Manifestations of mind
some conceptual and empirical issues
pp. 5-31
in: Gordon G. Globus, Grover Maxwell, Irwin Savodnik (eds), Consciousness and the brain, Berlin, Springer, 1976Abstract
The conference that generated this volume focused upon brain and consciousness. Consciousness is the major mental phenomenon discussed, and recent data from brain science, neuropsychology, and technology are assayed in an attempt to understand how consciousness is related to brain, and what problems that relationship poses. Since these are focal issues on many pages, I wish to point out that consciousness is just one exposed tip of the mental iceberg, and that fundamental mind-body issues remain no matter what is said of consciousness. My primary task is to overview a major cluster of mind-body problems from which consciousness may become a focal problem. This is not to demean consciousness as a problem, but to put it in perspective as one of many pressing issues. Having located the major issues, I wish to turn to the second focus of the conference: the role of data in conceptual problems. This book contains empirical data relevant to the mind-body problems, but none of them are decisive, and some remarks why this is to be expected are in order. Finally, the manner in which mind and body are manifested in the natural order has always been puzzling, and I believe that recent conceptual advances in linguistics and cognitive psychology help clarify the issue. Integral to this issue is an explication of the relationship that obtains between mind and the physical and biological orders, and the focal problem of the causal efficacy of consciousness.