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To the Editor: I believe that in his commentary on the JAMA Classics article on brain death, Dr Rosenberg¹ erred in approvingly commenting on Crick's book The Astonishing Hypothesis.² Rosenberg summarized the book's point as "there is no separate mind from the brain, the mind is the brain. Cartesian logic of a separate mind and brain is an archaic philosophical concept displaced by current functional magnetic resonance imaging, DBS [deep brain stimulation] studies, years of meticulous clinical-neuropathologic studies, and experimental neurophysiological animal studies that have proven that consciousness and mind are embedded into specific neuroanatomical arousal and behavioral circuits."

Cartesian dualism—one of multiple mind-brain dualistic hypotheses—is an interactionist hypothesis that is not only consistent with the studies Rosenberg cites. It predicts an embedded relationship between mind and brain insofar as Cartesian dualistic interactionism posits a (causal) change in the (material) brain for each and every change in the (immaterial) mind.³ . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Avak Albert Howsepian, MD, PhD
avak.howsepian@va.gov
University of California, San Francisco  Fresno Medical Education Program
Fresno

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