Are mental properties supervenient on brain properties?

ABSTRACT: The "mind-brain supervenience" conjecture suggests that all mental properties are derived from the physical properties of the brain. To address the question of whether the mind supervenes on the brain, we frame a supervenience hypothesis in rigorous statistical terms. Specifically, we propose a modified version of supervenience (called ε-supervenience) that is amenable to experimental investigation and statistical analysis. To illustrate this approach, we perform a thought experiment that illustrates how the probabilistic theory of pattern recognition can be used to make a one-sided determination of ε-supervenience. The physical property of the brain employed in this analysis is the graph describing brain connectivity (i.e., the brain-graph or connectome). ε-supervenience allows us to dete

SUBMITTER: Vogelstein JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3216585 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature