PATRICIA CHURCHLAND

Patricia Churchland(born July 16, 1943) is a

Canadian philosopher who has been a leading advocate of
the neurobiological approach to understanding human
consciousness, ethics and free will. Teaching at the
University of California, San Diego, since 1984, she has
been leader in the interdisciplinary project of combining
psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience in
research on the mind.The fundamental questions from
Plato onwards are these: How is it possible for us to
represent reality? How is it that we can represent the
external world of objects, of space and time, of motion and color? How do we represent the
inner world of thought and desire, images and ideas, self and consciousness? Where do moral
values come from? Since it is after all the nervous system that achieves these things, the
fundamental question can be reformulated thus: How does the brain situated in its bodily
configuration, within its surrounding physical environment, and within the social context its
finds itself — how does the brain work?

The human brain is, of course, a product of biological evolution, and as we increasingly
appreciate, evolution is remarkably conservative. Our brains are very similar in organization,
neuronal components, and neurochemicals to the brains of chimpanzees, monkeys, rodents, and
even in basic ways, to those of reptiles and fruit flies. Looked at from an evolutionary point of
view, the principal function of nervous systems is to enable the organism to move so as to
succeed at the Four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproduction. We cannot expect
engineering perfection in the products of evolution. Improvements to a nervous system are not
built by starting from scratch, but are modifications and extensions of what already exists. If we
approach the problems of nervous system function strictly as engineering problems, setting our
goals to figure out how a task could in principle be done, we may find a cunning solution that is
nothing like what evolution has actually found. Unless we go into the black box, we risk wasting
our time exploring remote, if temporarily fashionable, areas of computational space.

For decades, Patricia Churchland has contributed to the fields of philosophy of neuroscience,
philosophy of the mind and neuroethics. Her research has centered on the interface between
neuroscience and philosophy with a current focus on the association of morality and the social
brain. A professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and
adjunct professor at the Salk Institute, Pat holds degrees from Oxford University, the University
of Pittsburg and the University of British Columbia. She has been awarded the MacArthur Prize,
The Rossi Prize for Neuroscience and the Prose Prize for Science. She has authored multiple
pioneering books, her most recent being Touching a Nerve. She has served as President of the
American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Pat lives in
Solana Beach, California, with her husband Paul, a neurophilosopher, and their golden retrievers
Duff and Farley. They have two children, Anne and Mark, both neuroscientists.

PATRICIA
CHURCHLAND

Submitted to:
MR. EDUARDO OCASION

Submitted by:
DE LEON CATHERINE
DUPITAS ANNIE
FRANCO ERICA
YUMUL ELJAY