Notes on Some Fundamental Questions in the Humanities Based on Progresses in Br

Scientific progress may help us make breakthroughs in understanding the essence of human nature.The rapid and strong development of brain research in recent decades may indeed play such a role.Since ancient times,human beings have committed themselves to thinking about questions concerning the essence of human beings.This has gradually culminated in a number of common questions in the humanities,especially in philosophy.Recent development in the neurosciences is causing a rethinking or reawakening of these classic humanity questions,and even constitutes a challenge to the traditional answers of these questions.As scientists,we would like to sincerely share with our colleagues in the humanities our new view points and we also welcome their responses.In order to focus the discussion,we would like to present our points concerning three important issues in the humanity sciences： (I) The essence of the human mind,(Ⅱ) the conscious and unconscious brain,and (Ⅲ)and the question of whether we have free will.Our fundamental viewpoints are： the bodymind dualism should be explained by brainmonism; a major part of the brains working is unconscious mind/will; and free will in the common psychological sense does not exist.These view points may seem to be intense,but our goal is purely about the pursuit of truth,because that is the sole norm that scientists should pursue and follow.

Ⅰ. The Bodymind Dualism Should be Explained by Brainmonism

Since Descartes,philosophers have always been puzzled by the problem of dualism： mind and matter are two entirely different entities.How could objective (material) matter,during the last stage of the neuronal processing,zoom from the objective field into a completely different property field,i.e.the subjective field of the mind？How could objective things affect subjective things？The huge amount of literature on ″Philosophy of Mind″ which occupies a large proportion of todays philosophy seems immersed in the discussion of this question.As brain scientists,our answer to this issue is that the mind is not subjective,it is objective/matter.It is one of the properties of our brain,and is as objective as the other ″properties of objective things.″ Since the weight of evidence indicates that mental processes actually are processes of the brain,Descartes problem has disappeared,as Churchland (2008) rightly concluded［1］．

The mind is the result of our 100 billion brain cells working together,and is thus a product of the brain.The mind is produced by the brain by action potentials,neurotransmitters and synaptic changes,resulting in changes in activity of brain cells and interactions of brain areas.Other products of the brain are the regulation of body functions by the autonomic nervous system,motor behavior,and the release of hormones.From an anatomic point of view,the mind is the product of the ″extra″ brain tissue that we obtained during evolution on top of the brain tissue that we need to regulate those basic body functions.Therefore,not only mice, but also elephants and whales have (in spite of the fact that the latter two have larger brains than we) much less mind than we do［2］．