Mind Is Not Brain

I just saw this quote from Patricia Churchland, a professor of neurophilosophy: "To understand the mind, we must understand the brain."

Now this leads one's thoughts in perhaps unintended directions, although Churchland might not disagree with anything I'm about to say. It seems to be equally valid that to understand the brain, we must understand the mind. We must understand, in other words, what it means to understand, which is a mental, but not a brain, activity, as well as a state of being. 

I don't see how it can make sense to try to understand what it means to understand if all we talk about is the brain. That sounds like a category mistake: how could neuroscience explain what understanding -- that is, comprehension -- is? Neuroscientists can talk from now till the end of time about what goes on in the brain when we engage in mental activities, but that is nothing like explaining what those activities are in themselves. I am not aware of my brain activity, but I am certainly aware that I am aware. (And before one falls into the Cartesian cogito fallacy, remember that before one can be aware, something must exist to be aware of.) When I explain something to someone and ask, "Do you understand?" I am not asking if their brain is doing X rather than Y. I am asking if they "get it," and that concept needs no further elaboration in neurological terms. We all know what it means to "get" something. 

Atheists must get over their fear that if they allow that purposeful, willful mental activities are not identical to underlying brain processes, it would commit them to mysticism. It would not. As Gilbert Ryle showed 70 years ago, intelligent action requires no "ghost in the machine." 

Yes, we certainly need our brains to think, but that does not mean that to think is merely to have one's brain pulsating this way rather than that way. Everyone knows this directly, and it's silly to deny it in order to appear scientific. There's nothing scientific about ignoring what's right in front of you. Being conscious and acting with chosen purpose are irreducible activities. If you don't believe me, just watch people conversing and try to explain it in neurological terms. 

Look at it logically: if conscious activity requires the brain, then it cannot be that consciousness is indistinguishable from the brain. A can't be both identical to A and dependent on A.