Deus ex Cerebrum

Steven Rose seeks to become an apologist for Descartes ("In search of the God neuron"). However, instead of the pineal gland being the gateway between mind and brain, we neuroscientists are told to "recognise our limitations"...

The mind is not the brain, but if my every conscious thought is reducible to the action of the 1.5 kilograms of flesh between my ears, then where else shall we seek mind but there? The lovers in Zeki's study love with their brains, whether or not evidence of this fact is visible with neuro-imaging techniques.

Rose claims that brains cannot themselves have concepts or acquire knowledge. These are indeed elements of mind, not of the morphology of single neurones. But "mind" is what brains do, just as "walking" is what legs enable. Without legs, one indeed cannot walk. But the essential "me" which would like to get from A to B still exists. Without the brain the "me" is extinguished, and the body is just so much meat.

The squeamishness that is felt by people struggling with the idea of our supposed morals being reduced to chemistry or genetics make the same reductionist error that Rose rails against. The fact that mind is cut from the whole cloth of the brain does not require that our principles and behaviours are acquired at conception. The incredible malleability of our brains frees us to choose what ethics we will. It also removes an excuse from those who claim a lack of responsibility for their actions.