Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!kmc
From: kmc@netcom.com (Kevin McCarty)
Subject: Re: Do neuron firing patterns determine mentality?
Message-ID: <kmcCyx1wu.E6p@netcom.com>
Organization: self
References: <39k2f3$2qi@mudraker.mtholyoke.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 21:19:41 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <39k2f3$2qi@mudraker.mtholyoke.edu>,
Joseph O'Rourke <orourke@mtholyoke.edu> wrote:
> I wonder if there is evidence for this hypothesis:
> 
>         Neuron firing patterns determine our mental states.
> 
> Does this seem to be true?  Or might our mental states be partially
> determined by various chemical balances that do not affect neuron
> firings?  When we take a drug that affects our mentality, does it
> do so only by virtue of its effect on firing rates, strengths, patterns,
> etc.?

I think this question needs a bit of clarification.  Presumably all our
behavior is determined by neural firing patterns.  Included in this
behavior would be reports about whether we "felt different" after taking
some drug that had no effect on neural firing patterns but did have an
effect on some chemical balance.  Thinking about this last sentence
shows that we could not even report a noticable difference without
*some* difference in neural firing patterns.  So there's a problem
in distinguishing different mental states that have no behavioral
consequences at all.  This train of thought seems to show that the
hypothesis is vacuously true.

An interesting answer to this question will be one that makes an
interesting distinction between "gross" neural firing patterns, e.g. at
some level of statistical reduction, and "fine" neural firing patterns,
which can help to distinguish different mental states, at least at the
level noticeable to a subject.

Just what *kind* of evidence would provide confirmation/disconfirmation of
this hypothesis?
-- 
Kevin McCarty (kmc@netcom.com)
