fMRI There are other questions that come up when we look at research on the brain. Among the most recent techniques for imaging the brain are fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging). This technique provides a way of making images of the brain while it is "working". The images are thought to indicate where it is that most of the activity of the brain is taking place (in what part of the brain) and so indicate what part of the brain is responsible for particular behaviors. It has been relatively easy to get access to the equipment that produces fMRI images and so doing researchers have been using this technique to study brain activity in everything from voting to dreaming.

There are at least two issues that can be raised in connection to the use of fMRI. The first has to do with just how legitimate the conclusions that are drawn from the images are. If there is increased activity in a particular area of the brain when the subject votes for a Democrat as opposed to Republican what does that mean? This is a case of having information but not having a theory of the brain and how it works which is complete and clear enough so that we know how to use this information. This does not mean that it is pointless to collect the information but it does mean that we need to be very careful about the conclusions that we draw. The second issue the extent to wish the power of the technology and the images that are produced seem to make us think that we have better or more compelling evidence than we might have had before. There is something about the images that makes us think that we are seeing things more clearly than we have before. So issues about the relative importance of the data as well as what legitimate inferences can be drawn from it give us reason to be cautious with fMRIs. This is not to say that we cannot draw legitimate and interesting conclusions from them, however it is to say that they are only one of the many tools that we should be using as we try to understand ourselves.

Consciousness and the Turing test Whether or not consciousness is itself something physical has long been an issue. The Cartesian tradition of dualism posits two distinct substances, one mental and one physical. The mental substance is not governed by the laws of the physical universe and so that the mind (for Descartes, also the soul) can have free will and immortality is explained by the difference in substance. But with the increasing success of material science in the modern era and particularly in the 20th century, Cartesian dualism has given way to various forms of physicalism. The debate continues as there seem to be features of consciousness that are difficult to account for on a physicalistic conception of the the human being. One implication of physicalism is that if consciousness is fundamentally physical then it seems at least possible that the right physical combination could produce consciousness in a non-human being, for instance, a robot. This idea and others related to the nature of consciousness have generated much discussion in the philosophy of mind. The idea of the Turing test is one of the better known parts of this discussion. Here is a link explaining the test and what it might or might not show:

The Mind Project Curriculum