Boriana Handjiyska
February 17, 2000
The efficacy of mental events
Mental events originate from and exist uniquely in the field of mind. They are immaterial, invisible, intangible, non-spacial. Mental events include emotions such as love, hatred, affection; feelings such as pain; sensations/perceptions such as color, sound, taste; activities such as thinking, dreaming, desiring. Mental events are what constitutes an individual, makes one unique and unusual.
Aristotle gives a special value to mental events, which he elucidates in his book "De Anima" where he extensively discusses the soul and its properties. According to him mental events are the feature that makes us human beings, since all beings have a soul but only human beings have a mind. Descartes agrees about the importance of mental activities and goes even further to define them as the essence of human beings, the only indubitable expression of our existence. Epiphenomenalists view mental events in a radically different new way: they perceive them as something simply existing, with no function attached to it, no influence upon physical events but caused by physical events. Place simplifies it and states that mental events are physical events. Which is the most likely concept of mental events - are the latter efficacious or purposeless?
Aristotle considers mental events as essential for human beings. In the end of chapter 1, Book I he puts his efforts into elucidating the question "whether ...[affections of the soul] are shared also with the ensouled thing or whether some one of them is peculiar to the soul itself"
1 - he is concerned whether mental phenomena interact with the body and thus influence it. Through observation Aristotle concludes there should be interaction going on. He claims that whenever one has an emotion the body is affected by it. It is proven by the fact that sometimes one has a significant misfortune but does not feel as angry as when something small irritates one. Body becomes in a furious condition not because of the reality (e.g. serious problem) but because of the particular state of mind (mood). Aristotle gives another example when one is afraid although nothing frightening has happened. It is rather his thoughts or mood that make his body adopt a state of fear. Thus Aristotle derives the deffinition "Anger is a kind of movement of a body of a given kind or of a part or capacity of such a body because of one thing for the sake of another"2. Aristotle changes the location of anger from the mind to the body. Or rather anger originates in the mind and extends to the body. Aristotle goes further and introduces an analogy of a house which could be defined either in terms of its matter or in terms of its rationale. The best way of defining it according to Aristotle is in terms of both since they are inseparable. The analogy is applied on mental events: they (Aristotle calls them affections of the soul) "...are in this way inseparable from the natural matter of living things"3 Mind is not detached from the body but it exists through it and it is its way of expression. "But in the case of the soul too it seems that all its affections are with a body, as anger, mildness, fear, pity, hope and even joy and loving and hating. For in all these cases the body is affected in some way"4. Aristotle's opinion is that there is interaction between mind and body and the former does influence the latter.Descartes' arguments lead in the same direction. I am a thinking thing or a mind in my essence. In his philosophy mental processes come on first place. Body is not essential to the being of me - "...it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it"
5. This statement alone expresses clearly the view of Descartes that mental events are efficacious since it is they that actually perform existence. Through analogy he assumes that body also exists. The difference between body and soul he finds in the fact that the former is divisible while the latter is not. Soul is simple - it doesn't have parts, therefore it can appear only as a single point and acts on the body only through a single point. This idea involves some perceptional problems such as it would be possible to transfer to the body only a perception at a time. Also the concept of the soul as indivisible is highly controversial. Still, according to Descartes mind does affect body. They interact with each other in as much as they are a union .Epiphenomenalism introduces a radically different relationship between mind and body. It claims that consciousness is a product of brain processes but is itself without any causal effect on those processes. It is developed as the Automaton-theory in James' "The Principles of Psychology" . According to professor Clifford, whom James quotes, "there is parallelism between them [the physical and mental facts], but there is no interference of one with another"
6. Mind does not influence matter. To say the opposite is nonsense since the ideas of mind and body can not be compared and can not be assigned a cause-effect relationship for they are radically different from each other. The only thing that influences matter is other matter for it is in the same space. "Mental and physical events are, on all hands, admitted to present the strongest contrast in the entire field of being."7 Both epiphenomenalism and automaton-theory are based on this fact. However, while automaton-theory does not accept that physical events influence mental events ("no interference of one with another"), epiphenomenalism betrays the point by claiming that physical facts cause mental facts. If there is a one way connection established between the two what stops the other way round? Epiphenomenalists perceive mental events as a sort of side effect with no function or consequences. Automaton-theory sees them as an independently existing world parallel to the world of physical events. These ideas make it easier to distinguish our bodily and mental actions by not mixing their nature at all. It is more covenient and avoids in a sense misunderstandings of our own beahaviour.However, James argues against them and the reason he gives is purely practical: "The particulars of the destribution of consciousness point to its being efficacious."
8 Consciousness is more sufficient and developed in each higher level of animals. It is supposed that this is because it helps them to survive. If it does help them then it has a function. Thus consciousness is efficacious. James, however, does not consider the possibilty that in higher levels of animals consciousness is more complex as an effect of the more complex physical processes that occur in the animal. He presupposes that consciousness is what helps animals to survive rather than the physical events that happen within them and this has not been proven.Place's theory states that consciousness is a brain process. He eliminates the gap between mental and physical events by saying that they are actually the same. In order to establish what "is" in the initial statement means he introduces three analogies: "cloud is a mass of tiny particales in suspension", "record of tidal levels is record of the moon's stages" , and "lightning is a motion of electric charges". The raltionship between concsiousness and brain processes is not as the one between the cloud and the mass of droplets in suspension since when you observe a cloud closer the droplets become self-evident and this is not the case with consciousness. The second analogy fails too for it is not valid, there is only a "causal connection between two independent events or processes"
9. The third analogy seems to be the most applicable: "Lightening is nothing more than a motion of electric charges, because we know that a motion of electric charges through the atmosphere, such as occurs when lightning is reported, gives rise to the type of visual stimulation which would lead an observer to report a flesh of lightning". Now see the version when lightning and motion of electric charges is substituted by consciousness and brain process: "Consciousness is nothing more than a brain process, because we know that a brain process in the mind, such as occurs when consciousness is reported, gives rise to the type of mental stimulation which would lead an observer to report a flesh of consciousness". Although a bit awkward the sentence in its majority is valid. Thus Place implies that mental events are as efficacious as physical events since they are one and the same thing.The opinions over efficaciousness of mind are as many as there are philosophers concerned about it. The views presented in my work are diverse. Aristotle concludes by observation that body is always affected by mind; Descartes thinks that mental events are efficacious since they are the part of the union of mind and body that provides existence; epiphenomenalists are convinced that mental phenomena have no role at all but are a mere side effect; Place equalizes mental and physical events which implies that both are efficacious since otherwise both of them wouldn't be which is implausible.