The mind and brain in time: implications for modern neuropsychology

Abstract

In this paper, I wish to describe the categorical nature of the mind/brain state from its origins in drive to the refinements of human cognition. Categories are concepts with a broader scope. The virtual quality of category members corresponds to the relation of whole and part. A successive individuation of categories is the foundational operation of the mind/brain state. There is a similarity to fractal theory and the mereology of wholes and parts, though categories are not sums or containers, members are virtual and the whole/part specification is qualitative, unlike the self-similar replications of fractal theory. The discussion takes up the problem of causal transmission between the mind and brain and within and across mental states, concluding that an assimilation model has more explanatory power than a strictly causal one, in keeping with the distinction of potential/actual from cause/effect. The idea that mind-brain interaction is causal introduces the possibility of subjectivity independent of a material substrate. This leads to speculation on a world soul animating the brain as part of nature, and conversely, the effort to extract all vestiges of spirit to leave a purely material organism and universe. There is no bifurcation of the mental and physical; rather a graded series of stages with properties of material and subjective entities that eventuate in human mentality. This conforms to a neutral monism. Duration is inherent in nature and evolves in company with organisms of increasing complexity.