Adaptive Control Loops as an Intermediate Mind-brain Reduction Basis

Jaegwon Kim has proposed that the proper way to reduce mental to physical events and properties is to apply the causal inheritance-as-identity principle: “M is the property of having a property with such-and-such causal potentials, and it turns out that property P is exactly the property that fits the causal specification. And this grounds the identification of M with P”. It is argued that this principle should require further that the connection between properties M and P be dynamically intelligible (that is, compatible with the evolutionary and developmental features of mind-brains), and nomologically grounded. It is claimed that an adequate ‘causal inheritance-as-identity principle’ requires an intermediate level of reduction between mind and brain, in terms of adaptive control structures. It is further argued that this level provides dynamical intelligibility of the P-M connections, and provides nomological explanations for how physical and mental properties must develop jointly. 1 MULTIPLE REALIZATION, CAUSAL INHERITANCE AND PROPERTY IDENTITY The so-called “mind-body problem” arises from the difficulty of understanding how mental states and events (endowed as they are with intentional and phenomenal properties) are related to brain states and events. Cartesian dualism is a traditional answer to the problem; it has been found wanting on many accounts; in particular dualism has trouble explaining how two different substances can be made to interact causally. Reductionism is the view that the mind is identical with a set of brain processes (Place, 1956). Reductionism holds that there is only one type of causation, physical causation, holding between individual physical events. This view of causation is called “physicalism”: only physical entities are able to pro1 Institut Jean-Nicod, Department of Cognitive Studies, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.