A real science of mind. Really?!

A Real Science of Mind.  Really?!

Dr. Tyler Burge is not a fan of babble.  Neither am I.  His opinion in The New York Times Opinionator smacked of babbling.

First, there are the points where I believe we agree.  Images of fMRI scans appear everywhere, flashy color images that tout the location of brain functions nee mental processes.  They are, simply, too much.  They are exploratory science,
often not much more than case studies.  They seem to offer explanations of everything including our most cherished emotions such as love.  They do not.

They are also necessary.  Dr. Burge seems to have forgotten Kuhn’s exhortations that these types of studies are a central part of normal science.  They are puzzle-solving, examining the wide range of mental functions looking to verify the applicability of the paradigm that the brain/nervous system is a necessary substrate for mental processes.  As such, they represent a quantum leap forward in the neurobiology of mental processes.  Physiologists like von Helmholtz had earlier demonstrated that basic mental processes, psychophysics really, like perception correlated with the structure – length of nerves – of the nervous system.  For the more hard-core mental processes, such as language and emotions, psychology and neurobiology has had to work from instances of brain damage to investigate the relationship of mind to body
(brain).  Of course these studies, such as those by Broca and others, have been very successful in noting examples of
specific deficits in mental processes that correlate with damage to specific areas of the brain.  Nevertheless these
studies are correlative and are grounded on damaged, abnormal brains. 

Functional MRI studies allow psychologists and neurobiologists to evaluate normal functioning brains!  With this technology we can, are, exploring the range of mental processes and their relationship to specific brain areas.  This cataloging will take a long time, the activities in many regions will overlap and we will learn to further subdivide mental processes.  And, we will learn to distinguish among many processes that we now call by single words, like love, that we know have numerous facets to them.  And, we will learn to better probe mental functions, emotions, and mental disorders as we learn about the various brain regions and circuits modulated during them.  We will make many missteps, studies that seem brash or sophomoric, but we will discuss and debate our methods, and we will better our understanding of ourselves.  Does this excuse overstating the aims and findings from such exploratory cataloging?  No, but neither does it require lambasting.

I feel that Dr. Burge is setting up a rearguard action, an attempt to reinstate the mind-body distinction. If this is the case, he has already lost.  The necessity of brain/nervous system to the expression of many mental processes is well-documented and cannot be wished away.  The paradigm underlying most neurobiologists’ studies are that all mental processes require the nervous system for their expression, and the arduous, and sometimes simplistic efforts
to examine this paradigm are well underway.  Trained as a physiological psychologist, I am somewhat envious of the
newbies who get to study normal brains with fMRI’s and other advanced technologies.  But, I am very content to
discover new therapeutics.

The place where Dr. Burge might still open a debate is the question of whether the nervous system is sufficient for mental processes; I believe that the necessity of the nervous system for mental processes is a forgone conclusion and a resounding yes!  Yet, no technologies that I am aware of allow us to formally address the question of sufficiency.  We are clearly determining the processing that neurons and neuronal circuit can carry out.  It is here that the object of Dr.
Burge’s admiration, perceptual psychology, is playing a significant role.  As we better define the results and limits of
our perceptions, then we will better be able to ask whether the processing powers of neurons are sufficient to carry this out.  Moreover, the studies and results of perceptual psychology are a wonder unto themselves.  And yes, the results should be given more publicity.  In my own teaching, I specifically warn students not to put too much into the glossy, colorful fMRI images and to look more to the effects of visual illusions in their own perceptions to deal with their daily lives.  However, none of this overshadows the work of neurobiologists using fMRI’s and other real-time technologies to probe the brain-mental process connection.