An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental
features--a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the
mind-body problem.
Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem--whether to
attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body.
Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural
correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg
Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem;
instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an
empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address
the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he
contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms
of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should
consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem.
This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point--from within the mind
or brain to beyond the brain--in our consideration of mental features.
Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that
empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and
its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the
brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain
to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the "world-brain
relation" that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his
argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms.
He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to
recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes
the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for
consciousness.
