FoundationalConceptsNeuroscience

stage or landscape upon which our inquiry is carried out. The meta-
physical framework of contemporary science is called physical materi-
alism, or simply physicalism.
Within a physicalist metaphysics, mind, mental experience, and
consciousness must be explained in terms of the properties of matter.
Just how this relationship between mind and body manifests is the
mind-body problem. Over the centuries, many smart people have
thought deeply about mind, matter, and metaphysics. A great deal of
stuff from all sorts of perspectives has been articulated, providing rich
descriptive analyses of frameworks for conducting and interpreting
scientific inquiry.
Within a physicalist metaphysics, there is a way in which the
mind-body problem will always be a problem. There is a fundamental
difference of category between the physical and the mental—mental-
ity is irreducibly subjective and thus, it would seem, a very different
phenomenon from physical stuff. That’s precisely what makes the
mind-body problem difficult—some even say impossible. (How sub-
jectivity is related to the physical workings of the brain and body is
sometimes called the hard problem of consciousness research. It is
also referred to as the explanatory gap between the physical and the
subjective.)
Various approaches to the mind-body problem have been put forth
over the centuries. Here is a much abbreviated list: There is dualism,
in which there are two separate domains—matter (the physical stuff)
and mind (the mental stuff)—that somehow are able to come together
and interact within the body. There is mentalism (or idealism), where
what is really real is the mental domain and somehow our experience
of what we call physical is derived from that. There is panpsychism,
in which mind and consciousness are everywhere, fundamental to
the structure of reality. These terms are used within the discipline of