“A Scientific Re-Examination of the Mind-Body Problem” is the subtitle of this study on critical neuroscience. It presents a very difficult task, a struggle many scientists and philosophers have been dealing with since time immemorial. Is there anything that can be said about such an incredibly complex topic, anything at all which can be added to the conversation? Our main goal is to present a brief summary of the most important theories and experimental studies conducted so far on the correlation between mind and body. We will focus in particular on information and analysis from neuroscience and philosophy, but also provide new ways—new in terms of recent scientific discoveries and millennia-old philosophical traditions, and all the combinations thereof—of interpreting both. Given these premises, we will provide a general outlook on the most important sub-branches of neuroscience, including their connections to other scientific and therapeutic fields such as psychiatry, psychology and engineering, and at each intersection analyze their epistemological component, validity and applicability to our ‘human nature’. Debating the existence and possible correlation, even in a casual sense, between mind and brain or more broadly intended between a (concept of) self and a physical (body) entity is therefore at the center of this discussion. The very definition of ‘Critical Neuroscience’ is in this sense a product of progressive differentiation and specialization of areas within neuroscience and philosophy. Of course, we will admit right at the beginning of this discussion that we have a specific point of view toward certain aspects of the debate. We not only present such ‘bias’ openly and directly but also embrace it in attempting to discuss with the highest possible degree of objectivity and evidence-based scientific analysis and methodology all those elements which can be and should be put under very rigorous scrutiny using the most reliable and verifiable cutting-edge scientific techniques and technologies. We hereby claim, however, that there are areas—or at least certain elements in each area—of the debate which cannot (they do not necessarily fail to) be analyzed with the exact same methods used in our general scientific inquiry. This is not because we should rely on ‘less scientific’ parameters for this type of analysis, but exactly through scientific analysis we have come to the realization—and we are certainly not the first ones to reach such conclusion—that there are much deeper and greater parameters to follow when addressing issues as big as the mind–body problem. Certainly, we completely reject any attempt to discard the scientific method used in any research study and experiment to examine quantifiable data and information pertaining to observable matter. This is fundamental as well as ethically mandatory in our day and age, where we are often faced with pseudoscientific claims on, for instance, the nature of man and the universe or on certain therapeutic techniques in the medical field, which are not only based on unscientific claims but can often lead to unpleasant and risky clinical outcomes.1 Given these premises, why would there be a need of embracing a ‘bias’ if we are indeed to follow the most objective, evidence-based, experimental scientific methods offered to us? There are several reasons, which we will thoroughly examine in the following chapters. To present a general summary of these reasons however, we can start from the very concept of subjectivity in interpreting certain results. As with phenomena such as the placebo/nocebo effects (in medicine), the observer effect (in physics) or double hermeneutic (in social sciences), we need to keep in mind that not only it is impossible to completely avoid the subjective element in any scientific field dealing with—at least—human nature (although it is certainly possible, at least to a certain extent, to monitor and quantify the possible effects in terms of confounding variables, skewed results or comorbidity factors), but we could use such element to our advantage, in order to better understand certain phenomena. This is important, especially when some results appear to be unclear outliers or simply do not conform to the current scientific paradigm. The purpose is also to reach a higher level of understanding of the ‘big picture’ (as we do not claim here to be able to see the ‘whole’ picture, at least not yet), as opposed to a confined, limited understanding of only this or that factor or variable. Of course, an analysis of a method is very hard to conduct from within. In other words, investigating the scientific method used for all aspects of human nature using the scientific method (as commonly defined by the parameters used until very recent times2) could represent a paradox, an oxymoron or even a double-bind, a ‘Catch 22’ or a ‘regression problem’ in our effort. Of course, not every investigative strategy which starts and develops ‘from within’ is to reject a priori. Some deductive and inductive aspects of concepts such as ‘introspection’, especially in the psychological sense, appear to be quite useful and effective in this context, as long as we understand the difference in magisteria between the areas where this strategy is justified and the areas in which the ‘standard’ scientific method ought to be applied. Certainly, this would account for moving the issue ‘one step up’, and we are still faced with the main concern of determining the parameters for this differentiation. The strategy we hereby suggest to solve the problem comes from the application of philosophy as a method for science, particularly medical science, and especially in the context of psychosomatic disorders. Of course, this is the core of epistemology, a branch or subfield of philosophy concerned with the analysis of science and the scientific method, and more broadly the parameters, the prerequisites and the boundaries of knowledge, including the acquisition, the attainability and the validity of such knowledge, which is also understanding, comprehension and realization, as evidenced by the German equivalent Erkenntnistheorie, and Gnoseologie as synonyms for Epistemologie. We will therefore apply many of the concepts used in classical epistemology as well as the ones presented by criticism to the core of epistemology, whether from philosophical skepticism or from general postmodernism. But we will extend the discourse to one of the most important areas of investigation of the human nature, neuroscience.
Given the exciting results of the ‘decade of the brain’ and the following ‘decade of the Mind’, and the philosophical schools of thoughts originating from this type of research, for instance in neurophilosophy, we wanted to present the most recent viewpoint on the validity and application of this research in areas traditionally associated with philosophical thought, such as conscience vs. consciousness, (self)perception and awareness, identity, and personality, meaning, sense, purpose and so on. In this sense, the title “Critical Neuroscience” has a double valence. It is critical in the epistemological sense of “providing a critique-criticism of the assumptions, methods, methodologies, theories, techniques, and technologies, and observation-interpretation of results in neuroscientific research”, but is also critical in the sense of “applied and applicable to critical clinical-medical and philosophical-existential situations”. In other words, we are talking about a critical situation or emergency that is both situated (in a social/anthropological sense, but also historical/philosophical sense3 and in regard to embodied cognition) and truly emergent (Lat. ex -mergere). As we stated, some crucial elements in this analysis have already been presented in other works, especially in Medical Philosophy (Tomasi 2016), although in this context they have been further elaborated under the lens of neuroscience and, in some areas, have been used as critical variables to be examined again in the exploration of a philosophical defense for certain positions, especially in regard to the mind–body problem. It follows that some viewpoints that were simply presented in Medical Philosophy to provide a general survey of the possible philosophical positions on, for instance, the nature and essence of being human are hereby discussed as integral parts of a “guided suggestion-suggested guide” for a better understanding of our self, especially in the context of treatment modalities. Thus, beyond the defense of the aforementioned scientific methodological basis necessary for experimental science, we also question here some assumptions Western science has had over the centuries. Assumptions which were relevant during the age of enlightenment, and even more so in modern times, where science has often turned into, in the words of Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “a replacement for religion” (Hossein Nasr 1968). This is a position similar to Giorgio De Santillana, especially in regard to the valence of pre-Socratic and ancient philosophical-religious traditions and ideas on the origin and development of our nature, but very interesting parallels, especially in regard to brain–computer interface, biological vs. virtual perception, and artificial intelligence, with the work by Marco Somalvico at the Politecnico di Milano.
Affective Neuroscience
Artificial Intelligence
Behavioral Neuroscience
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Clinical and Medical Neuroscience
Critical Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Cultural and Transcultural Neuroscience
Cultural, Cross-cultural and Trans-cultural Psychiatry
Developmental Neuroscience
Ethnopsychology and Psychological Anthropology
Evolutionary Neuroscience
History of Neuroimaging
Medical Anthropology and Ethnomedicine
Neuroanatomy
Neuroanthropology
Neurocritical care or Neurointensive care
Neuroeconomics
Neuroengineering
Neuroethology
Neuroheuristics or Neuristics
Neuroimaging and Neurophysics
Neuroinformatics
Neurolinguistics
Neurophysiology
Neuropsychology and Neuropsychotherapy
Neurosurgery and Neurology, including Behavioral Neurology
Neurotheology and Psychology of Religion
Paleoneurology
Psychoneuroimmunology, Psychopharmacology and Psychobiology
Sensory Neuroscience and (Theory of) Perception
Social Neuroscience
Sociobiology
Systems Neuroscience
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A left dorsolateral view of the brain, with focus on the cerebral cortex with the four lobes, the cerebellum and the limbic system. Highlighted are the central proprioceptive neural areas with the central sulcus dividing the primary motor cortex and the somatosensory cortex
Furthermore, given what we said (and we will further explore) about the context (social, cultural, etc.) in which neuroscience operates, itself influenced and influencing brain activity and philosophical speculation, we will raise some questions connected to fields apparently very distant from either philosophy and neuroscience, such as public and healthcare policy (especially in regard to medicine and nursing), politics and even legislation processes. Certainly, we will also challenge some of the assumptions in the modern neuroscientific viewpoint, especially in regard to the hierarchical elements of description, namely, that only based on neuroscientific techniques such as neuroimaging we can (read: we are logically allowed to) infer that there is a ‘democratic’ process happening on a neural—not neurological, as it is part of the same hermeneutics we are discussing—level that makes all the processes therein collaborate ‘at the same level of value/valence efficacy of action’ and there is absolutely no evidence of an external/internal, certainly ulterior or even transcendental factor or ‘entity’ that influences (or even designs) those processes, functions and structures ‘from above’. Thus, we will argue that there is a rhythmic, circular movement between monism, dualism (even trialism, etc., possibly pluralism or universalism) views and the hermeneutic interpretation of the applicability of neuroscience to philosophy and vice versa. We could view this viewpoint as ‘tending to balance’, or ‘homeostatic’ between what we could call ‘Mother Nature and Father Nurture’. With a certain risk of falling into psychologistic explanations or psychoanalytic overinterpretation, we will also examine the debate on the mind–body problem under the same investigative frameworks, that is, we will try to understand how much of ‘fear components’ are present in choosing one philosophical-scientific viewpoint over another one, and defending it with extreme passion and, unfortunately, a lot of narrow-mindedness, its premises. This can be said about pretty much everything from reductionist-materialistic views of the self to the so-called quantum mind, from social cognition and embodied cognition to esoteric understandings of mystical experiences, etc.
Given these premises, the decision to list all these philosophical-scientific models and neuro-related disciplines in a text on critical neuroscience in the context of medical treatments comes from our intention to guide the reader through the specific viewpoint of each field, by itself first, and in combination with others after. Of course, the main goal is to present new ideas and a possible new paradigm, according to the Aristotelian saying: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” We also want to argue that a new point of view is only possible when the most important elements of every previous perspective (thus, every field of scientific inquiry) has been understood, mastered and applied to verify its strengths and weaknesses and the most effective areas of applicability. That is precisely why ‘Critical Neuroscience’ as a distinct field is presented only after examining other disciplines, in the last chapter of this work, Philosophy as Basic Approach Toward Neuroscience. And philosophy is the true glue which keeps all these discussions together and views them from above and from below. Of course, we attempted to present multiple philosophical approaches and schools of thought, but—as we previously mentioned—we embraced our bias fully to subjectively indicate4 where our mind, or our brain, stands.