Algorithm of the Mind

For millennia, the mind-body problem remained an abstract philosophical issue that seemed to have no solution or practical relevance. Today, we understand that we cannot treat mental illnesses without knowing what mechanisms work in the body to create the normally functioning mind and what happens to them in pathology. This is not an abstract issue but a practical task.
In recent decades, natural science has finally started to treat the mind as an object of research. The initial approach was to study the ‘neural correlates of consciousness’. Since then, we have accumulated a vast amount of data on neural processes that appear to correlate with observed mental phenomena. However, the explanatory gap between the mental and the physical still exists, since correlation does not prove causation. Fundamental questions remain open. What is the mind? What does it do? Why does it do it? How does it do it?
The last question requires a causal explanation, which is the ultimate task for science and the actual hard problem. However, we cannot reach the final goal without answering the first question. It means that we have to formulate a definition of the object of our research. The definition should be expressed in physical terms so that the following questions can be answered in the same terms. Otherwise, we will remain in a millennia-old vicious circle of the dualistic mind-body problem without covering the explanatory gap. Some researchers insist that the mind cannot be defined in physical terms; others believe that any definition would be either premature or limiting. Both approaches avoid responsibility for the task facing science. The lack of a definition puts us in the awkward position of searching for a ‘black cat in a dark room’ without knowing what a ‘cat’ is. This mission is impossible, even if a ‘cat’ is there. Since a definition must be the starting point for a search, it cannot be premature. It can be incomplete or inaccurate, but this can only be verified during the search.
This book begins the search with a strictly physical definition of the mind. It proceeds to answer all other questions about the mind, developing a theory with empirically testable hypotheses and physical-mathematical models from the cellular level to the brain as a whole. The theory addresses the physical processes and mechanisms underlying mental phenomena and provides causal explanations that bridge the gap between body and mind.