Interactionism, Evolution, & the Initial Alteration

Abstract

Unlike many other articles in philosophy of the mind, this is not an article which aims to prove or even give evidence for an ontological position regarding the mind.  This article assumes a position regarding the mind and then draws implications from it. This article aims to show that if we assume two things as given, that of an interactionist view point and the theory of evolution by mutation and natural selection, it follows that there is a particular moment in time I label the initial alteration.  The initial alteration is the original instance of the change in behavior of matter in the brain of some organism in our evolutionary history.  I will show that this moment in time is of great interest and opens the possibility of moving the mind-body problem towards experimentation.  I list several possibilities surrounding this moment, though I will not explore them all in detail.