Against Unity

Given that the human mind just is the human brain, why do most people resist the suggestion that their minds are best described in neurological terms? One of the more helpful explanations that philosophers have come up with lately is an analogy that Hilary Putnam draws between the brain-mind distinction and the hardware-software distinction.

In theory, Putnam says, you can explain your computer's behavior in hardware terms. You can predict what it will do next in the vocabulary of electrical circuitry. But we do not use this vocabulary if we can help it: it is much easier to predict and explain what the computer is going to do by reference to the program it is running. Some day (when we are able to tease brains apart neuron by neuron), it may be possible to use neurological expertise to predict my next utterance. But even then, surely, it will be much easier to predict it in more familiar ways. ("When the argument reaches that point, you can count on Rorty to interject, as he always does, . . .")

To continue reading this article, please download the PDF. ----------------------------------------------------------