302 Self and the Phenomenon of Life
b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanity “9x6”13.2 Three Views of the Mind
Today there are three main schools of thought regarding the concept of
mind: (1) that mind does not exist — it is just an illusion; (2) that mind
exists — it is a product of matter but it does not feedback on matter;
(3) that mind exists — it is a product of matter and it feeds back on matter.
13.2.1 Mind does not exist
The first school denies the presence of mind — the private self. They
take the physical changes in the brain as the only reality about the brain,
and consider it unfounded for the separate existence of a private experi-
ence. For them, the study of the mind should be replaced by the study
of the brain.^7 Daniel Dennett dismisses the subjective feelings (pain, for
instance) as an illusion or misjudgment because they can be “explained
away” by the physical processes observed inside the brain.^8
The fallacy of this thinking is that explaining something does not
necessarily negate its existence. There are many entities in the world
that can be broken down (or “dissolved”) into simpler, more fundamen-
tal components that are quite distinct from the original. Take a concrete
example. A building can be mentally dismantled into bricks, cement,
posts, beams, roof, and many other things, but this analysis does not
annihilate the mansion standing before your eyes. Rather than being
fictitious, the composite entity is the outcome of a phenomenon called
emergence. Emergence refers to the fact that interactions of matter at
one level, when reaching a certain degree of complexity (or a critical
point), can lead to the appearance of new properties at a higher level
(such as gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen combining to form liq-
uid water). Assuming the concept of “explaining away” were true, let us
see what it would lead to. If the mental state does not exist because it
is explained away by the physical state of the brain, then the brain pro-
cesses can also be explained away by the molecular and ionic changes
in the neurons, which in turn can be reduced into atoms, then to the
elementary particles, and finally to the quarks and quanta, down to the