are sensations nothing over and above brain processes?

In this essay I am going to argue that sensations are “nothing over and above brain processes.” The exact point advanced by Smart in his paper “sensations and brain processes”. His claim is that sensations are strictly identical with physical brain processes, therefore physical themselves. This negates the idea held by dualists that sensations are constructed from a separate mental substance wholly separate from the physical brain processes. From Smart’s view it seems a logical step to the more generalized description of Physicalism by Hendel. “There is nothing over and above the physical” . I will argue that it is this theory that provides the greatest success in describing mental states, and in describing them concurrently with modern scientific discoveries and views.
During my essay I will provide counter argument to some phenomenological and logical objections raised against Smart’s theory, and importantly to discuss the nature of the strict identity between sensation and brain process stated by this theory, and dispute any objections made against the identity theory on these grounds.

Smart – “when I say that a sensation is a brain process, I am using “is” in the sense of strict identity” . The strict identity is of great importance, as if it were to be any weaker, to suggest only a causation or a correlation between sensations and brain processes it would leave space for sensations to be explained as something “over and above” brain processes, thus providing no physical explanation of sensations, a situation described by Feigl as a “Nomological Dangler”, leaving all events and actions physically explainable, except for sensations. But with the identity theory it is possible to avoid such undesirable ad hoc expla...

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...osition that relied upon semantic and epistemic identities which prima facie may have appeared to have a strong position against the identity theory and in turn physicalism, had upon inspection I believe were shown to be misguided. I also believe that I was able to provide strong enough defence for the identity theory and also physicalism against any objections that rested upon the lemma that Qualia was not representable as any physical quantity. Although the identity theory is not the only possible answer to the problem surrounding sensations and the brain, I believe it to be the most attractive option, not only due to the points I have discussed in this essay, but for its simplicity and the success of which it has had in encompassing modern philosophical and scientific thought, an attribute that I do not feel I can assign to any mental-physical dualistic theories.