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Perspectives on Neuroscience

Perspectives on Neuroscience

Published on: July 31, 2007

Are mental properties supervenient on brain properties?

Joshua T Vogelstein¹, R Jacob Vogelstein, Carey E Priebe

¹Department of Applied Mathematics & Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. joshuav@jhu.edu

Scientific Reports

|February 23, 2012

Summary

We introduce ε-supervenience, a statistical framework to test if mental properties derive from brain properties. This approach uses brain connectome data to infer mental states with a defined error rate, fostering neuroscience and statistics collaboration.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Philosophy of Mind
Statistical Modeling

Background:

The mind-brain supervenience conjecture posits mental properties arise from brain's physical properties.
Testing this conjecture requires a statistically rigorous and experimentally tractable framework.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose a novel statistical definition of supervenience (ε-supervenience) for empirical investigation.
To demonstrate how ε-supervenience can be applied to the mind-brain problem using brain connectivity data.

Main Methods:

Framing a supervenience hypothesis in rigorous statistical terms.
Developing a probabilistic pattern recognition approach for one-sided ε-supervenience determination.
Utilizing the brain graph (connectome) as the physical property of the brain.

Main Results:

Introduced ε-supervenience, allowing statistical inference of mental properties from connectomes.
Demonstrated a method to determine if a mental property can be inferred from the connectome within a specified misclassification rate.
Established a framework applicable regardless of the direct relationship between mental and physical properties.

Conclusions:

ε-supervenience offers a statistically sound and experimentally feasible method to investigate the mind-brain supervenience conjecture.
This framework encourages interdisciplinary research between neuroscientists and statisticians.
The approach provides a quantitative measure for assessing the link between brain structure and mental states.