Some Thoughts on the Mind-Body Problem

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM ERWIN LEVY* Traditionally the mind-body problem has been considered part of the domain of the philosophers. But in our time it no longer belongs only there. Recent developments in medicine, particularly in psychiatry— such as the discovery of the electric-convulsive antidepressive therapies, the new antipsychotic drugs, the unexpectedly large role of psychological factors in the genesis ofsome physical diseases, and our limited ability to influence some ofthem psychotherapeutically—have made physicians and psychiatrists work continually back and forth across the mind-body frontier, although usually without giving the fact very much thought. They find themselves in the paradoxical situation of doing what they are doing without any real understanding ofhow it is possible to do it. Hence some thought ought to be given to the riddle by medicine and psychiatry , especially since at this point nobody can foresee whether an eventual solution may not have some important practical-technical consequences for these disciplines. Let us make this more concrete. There is evidence that the effective action ofsome antischizophrenic drugs consists ofblocking the uptake of dopamine by the postsynaptic receptor cells and thus inhibiting an apparently hyperactive neurotransmission in certain areas of the brain. Consider now any example ofschizophrenic thinking, as when a patient, asked why he shivered and whether he was cold, answered, "Can an introvert ever be an extrovert?" The question arises, How can this kind of thought derailment be linked to a disturbance of the dopamine neurotransmission system, an electrochemical process, and how can it be ameliorated by the administration of a chemical substance? What can be the relationship between dopamine and thinking? In saying that thinking straightens out because of a chemical intervention, we seem to commit what Aristotle would have described as the logical mistake of a metabasis eis allo genos, a jump from one class of concepts to another, completely heterogeneous one. Yet we know that this effect ofthe physical on the psychic, and ofthe psychic on the physical, exists and operates»Address: 120 East Eighty-first Street, New York, New York 10028.© 1980 by The University of Chicago. 0031-5982/80/2304-0148$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine ¦ Summer 1980 | 513 as long as there is life, Aristotle's prohibition notwithstanding. It is as if nature were mocking him. Historically the question of the relationship between these two utterly different and incomparable orders of events has been of theoretical importance because ofits impact on any doctrine ofman and his position in the universe and, as we shall see, possibly on our ideas of the nature of the latter. The traditional assumption has been dualistic: "Body and soul" are two different things. I shall not outline the complete history of the problem but will mention very briefly only some positions: first, that of the mathematician and philosopher Descartes. He saw the difference between matter and mind in the fact that the former was extended in space and divisible, res extensa, while the latter was not so extended and indivisible, res cogitans. As a mathematician he knew that the only element in space which had not extension was the point; hence the place of contact between res extensa and res cogitans had to be point shaped. He also knew that this place had to be in the brain; the part of it which came nearest to this shape was the pineal gland. Hence he deemed it to be the seat of the mind. I shall mention other theories only by name. For example, emergentism claimed that the physical processes were the cause which led to the emergence of the psychic functions, and the latter were thought to be a kind of epiphenomena of the former. As Hudson Hoagland expressed it, "I have found it useful to define mental processes as an evolutionary emergent property of the integrated action of complex nerve nets composed of many neurons" [1, p. 318]. Or, to quote Linus Pauling, "I think that the mind is a manifestation of the structure of the brain, that it is an electrical oscillation in the brain supported by the material structure of the brain" [2, p. 32]. At a meeting several years ago the...