Organic nature grew out of dead nature; living nature produced a form capable of thought. First, we had matter, incapable of thought; out of which developed thinking matter, man. If this is the case – and we know it is, from natural science – it is plain that matter is the mother of mind; mind is not the mother of matter. Children are never older than their parents. ‘Mind’ comes later, and we must therefore consider it the offspring, and not the parent … matter existed before the appearance of a thinking human; the earth existed long before the appearance of any kind of ‘mind’ on its surface. In other words, matter exists objectively, independently of ‘mind’. But the psychic phenomena, the so-called ‘mind’, never and nowhere exists without matter, were never independent of matter. Thought does not exist without a brain; desires are impossible unless there is a desiring organism… In other words: psychic phenomena, the phenomena of consciousness, are simply a property of matter organised in a certain manner, a ‘function’ of such matter.

– Nikolai Bukharin

The interpretation of brain mechanisms represents one of the last remaining biological mysteries, the last refuge of shadowy mysticism and dubious religious philosophy.

– Steven Rose

For centuries, as we have seen, the central issue of philosophy was the question of the relation between thought and being. Now at last the great strides forward made by science are beginning to shed light on the real nature of the mind and how it works. These advances provide striking confirmation of the materialist outlook. This is particularly the case in relation to the controversies over the brain and neurobiology. The last hiding place of idealism is under attack, which does not prevent the idealists from staging a stubborn rearguard action, as the following quotation shows:

“When it became impossible to investigate this non-material element of creation many dismissed it. They came to think that only matter was real. And so our deepest thoughts were reduced to nothing but the products of brain cells working according to the laws of chemistry…We may study the electrical brain responses that accompany thought, but we cannot reduce Plato to nerve pulses, or Aristotle to alpha-waves…Descriptions of physical movements will never reveal their meaning. Biology can only examine the interlocking world of neurons and synapses.” (Blackmore and Page)[51]

What we call “mind” is just the mode of existence of the brain. This is an immensely complicated phenomenon, the product of many millions of years of evolution. The difficulty in analysing the complex processes that occur within the brain and nervous system, and the equally complex interrelations between mental processes and the environment, has meant that a proper understanding of the nature of thought has been delayed for centuries. This has enabled idealists and theologians to speculate on the allegedly mystical nature of the “soul”, conceived as a non-material substance which deigned to take up temporary residence in the body. The advances of modern neurobiology mean that the idealists are finally being driven from their ultimate refuge. As we begin to unlock the secrets of the brain and nervous system, it becomes progressively easier to explain the mind, without recourse to supernatural agents, as the sum total of brain activity.

In the words of neurobiologist Steven Rose, mind and consciousness are:

“the inevitable consequence of the evolution of particular brain structures which developed in a series of evolutionary changes in the pathway of humanity’s emergence…consciousness is a consequence of the evolution of a particular level of complexity and degree of interaction among the nerve cells (neurons) of the cerebral cortex, while the form it takes is profoundly modified for each individual brain by its development in relationship with the environment.”[52]

  1. Blackmore, V. and Page, A. Evolution: the Great Debate, pp. 185-6, our emphasis.

  2. Rose, S. The Conscious Brain, p. 31.