1. Can the mind be understood scientifically

1. Can the mind be understood scientifically
2. Can morality be studied objectively.
3. Can morality be reduced to the pursuit of rational self interest.
4. Are desires and dispositions naturally given or socially created.
5. Do humans possess moral choice.
6. Can we transform human nature.

1. can the mind be understood scientifically ?

From an anatomical point of view the brain can be dissected and monitored so that we begin to understand the locations where some of the brains responses are centred but it seem that there is an interplay between different regions to provide the outcome. 

The symbiosis between the electrical and the chemical, between the neurones of which there are 100 billion and the synaptic chemical connections each neurone connecting to 10000 other neurones through this synaptic connection within the brain, seem to be the transmitters of what we might call information and seem to be the constituents of memory and the receptor of past and current moments which link us to thoughts.

But what of the thoughts. Are they something which can be caught and examined or do they belong to another class of phenomena that are beyond the reach of true scientific analysis.

Do our thought arise from those myriad and complex connections each weighted by the chemistry within the synaptic connection. The amino acid glutamate, dopamine, adrenalin, histamine, depending on which, they add to the mix of the reaction and the brains resolution to them.

Is the actual mathematical complexity, the variability of the neurones electrical potential, which is varied by the type of synaptic connection and the chemical present, is this almost infinite variation at the root of not being able to pin down what we mean by memory in the sense of, it is not something we can define given the physics we have to describe it.

Does it belong to us personally or is it a reaction that, going on in each of our minds, more a by-product than personal. Like the waste we exclude from our bodies it bears little or no relationship to that first bite, or the anticipation that proceeded it.