Mental Causation In a Physical Brain?

Abstract Mental causation is a philosophical concept attempting to describe the causal effect of the immaterial mind on subjects ́ behavior. Various types of causal-ity have different interpretations in the literature. I propose and explain this con-cept within the framework of the reciprocal causality operating in the brain bidi-rectionally between local and global brain levels. While committing myself to the physical closure assumption, I leave room for the suggested role of mental proper-ties. Mental level is viewed as an irreducible perspective of description supervening on the global brain level. Hence, mental causation is argued to be interpreted as a convenient metaphor because mental properties are asserted to be causally redun-dant. Nevertheless, they will eventually help us identify and understand the neural and computational correlates of consciousness. Within cognitive science, the pro-posed view is consistent with the connectionist and dynamic systems paradigms, and within the philosophy of mind, I see it as a form of non-reductive physicalism.