explaining the brain aug 2007

[...]... evidential support They explain this fact by appealing to an ambiguity between the trivial neuron doctrine (that is, the doctrine that some theory of cognitive neuroscience is the best explanation for the mind and brain) and the radical neuron doctrine (that is, the doctrine that some exclusively biological theory of cognitive neuroscience is the best explanation for the mind and brain) The trivial doctrine... neuroscience 13 the world than scientists in other fields They are convinced that their techniques are more useful for intervening to change the brain than are the techniques used by other fields, and they believe that they have identified the items that are most explanatorily relevant to the phenomenon to be explained Debates about the relevance of different fields and levels are part of the sociology of... origins The second goal of neuroscience is to control the brain and the central nervous system Neuroscience is driven in large part by the desire to diagnose and treat diseases, to repair brain damage, to enhance brain function, and to prevent the brain s decay This goal is evident in the many designer pharmaceuticals promising to ameliorate psychiatric and physiological symptoms, in the skill of the brain. .. use other terms to describe their explanatory achievements They say that they are searching for the neural bases, the realizers, and the substrates of a phenomenon.² They say that they discover systems and pathways in the flow of information, and molecular cascades, mediators, and modulators The term mechanism could do the same work But what is a mechanism? History cannot answer this question The term... power this truth: no other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism In those cases which cannot at the time be explained by these forces one has either to find the specific way or form of their action by means of the physical-mathematical method, or to assume new forces equal in dignity to the chemical-physical forces inherent in matter, reducible to the force of attraction... number of nonmechanical parts The hubcaps, the mud flaps, and the fuzzy dice are features of a fine machine, but none of these is a part of any of its mechanisms If these features are removed, the machine changes, but the mechanisms remain the same Rather than starting with the machine analogy, it is better to start thinking about mechanisms with the help of an example Consider the mechanism by which a neuron... 5 from the cytoskeleton At this point, Rab3A and Rab3C target the freed vesicle to release sites in the membrane Then v-SNARES (such as VAMP), which are incorporated into the vesicle membrane, bind to t-SNARES (such as syntaxin and SNAP-25), which are incorporated into the axon terminal membrane, thereby bringing the vesicle and the membrane next to one another Finally, local influx of Ca2+ at the active... if they work, would show that there are no nonfundamental objects or properties full stop (There are no brains, no cells, and no receptors either) The metaphysical fundamentalist argues that nonfundamental things have no causal powers over and above fundamental things They believe, roughly, that everything has a complete cause at the fundamental level (the principle of the causal completeness of the. .. itself Gerald Edelman says that the goal of neuroscience is to: ¹⁵ Some defend the thesis that nonfundamental items are explanatorily, but not causally, relevant I will defend the view that they are explanatorily relevant because they are causally relevant 14 starting with neuroscience construct a scientific theory of the mind based directly on the structure and workings of the brain By ‘‘scientific’’ in... upright In the popular press (but also in textbook introductions), one frequently finds claims that neuroscientists are on the verge of explaining the mysteries of consciousness, the illusion of free will, the frailty of human memory, and the nature of the self If neuroscience succeeds in these explanatory goals, it will revise our self-conception as radically as Copernicus’ decentering of the earth .