Q&A: Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Question
Hello,
How do we know that all our emotions are nothing more than chemical processes in the brain?
Before I directed the question here, I asked Michi Bot, and the explanations rejecting that possibility are classic examples— in my opinion—of begging the question. After all, we do not have precise knowledge about the effect of chemical processes on the brain. Perhaps the chemical activity in the brain causes precisely the subjective feeling of pain, happiness, sorrow, and so on? Do we have proofs that this is not the case?
(These questions have nothing to do with my personal opinion.)
Answer
I assume you mean to ask how we know that they are not such things. I have written about this at length, so I will answer briefly here.
A. Who said that emotions are not the result of chemical processes? What does that mean? And even if they are the results of chemical processes, the question is what creates those processes themselves (perhaps the psyche?).
B. Emotions are not processes in the brain. That is simply a conceptual mistake, unrelated in any way to neuroscience or to science in general. At most, you can say that emotions are produced by brain processes, but not identify the two with each other.
C. This is not begging the question but an assumption. Don’t you also have assumptions in life? If for me this is the starting point, then for me the burden of proof is on those who oppose it. If they have not met that burden of proof, then I remain with my position. That is really not begging the question, at least not in the sense of a fallacy.