The Five Marks of the Mental

Abstract

The mental realm seems different to the physical realm; the mental is thought to be dependent on, yet distinct from the physical. But how, exactly, are the two realms supposed to be different, and what, exactly, creates the seemingly insurmountable juxtaposition between the mental and the physical? This review identifies and discusses five marks of the mental, features that set characteristically mental phenomena apart from the characteristically physical phenomena. These five marks (intentionality, consciousness, free will, teleology, and normativity) are not presented as a set of features that define mentality. Rather, each of them is something we seem to associate with phenomena we consider mental, and each of them seems to be in tension with the physical view of reality in its own particular way. It is thus suggested how there is no single mind-body problem, but a set of distinct but interconnected problems. Each of these separate problems is analyzed, and their differences, similarities and connections are identified. This provides a useful basis for future theoretical work on psychology and philosophy of mind, that until now has too often suffered from unclarities, inadequacies, and conflations.

From Neuroscience to Law: Bridging the Gap

“…Although it follows from physicalism that mental and behavioral features are always BOX 3 | Non-reductive physicalism and the problem of causal exclusion. It seems natural for us to separate the mental from the physical, for various reasons (Pernu, 2017). For example, how you feel subjectively does not seem to be identical with the neural states that we observe to correlate with your feelings: although you might feel in a certain way -depressed, anxious, aggressive -it would not be correct to say that your brain has these feelings (even if these feelings would not be there without your brain).…”

“…Both dualism and the identity theory seem unacceptable to scientifically informed common-sense: neither are the mind and the body wholly distinct, nor are our mental notions completely translatable to neural ones (and vice versa) (cf. Pernu, 2017). But what could the third way be?…”

To Overcome Psychiatric Patients’ Mind–Brain Dualism, Reifying the Mind Won’t Help

“…what a thought is about) or phenomenal content (e.g. what it feels like) that are considered as unique features of the mental domain can play a role, too (19).…”

Psycho-physiologic emergentism; four minds in a body

“…From a psycho-physiological perspective, the existing relationship between the mind and the brain (known as the mind-body problem) is far from being understood (6). Thus, it is yet unknown how the abstract mind (abstract ideas or thoughts) functions within a physical brain, from whence it intervenes not only in the decision making process but also in the elaboration/ coordination of several motor responses, some of which are abstract in nature (e.g., abstract-based gestures).…”