Philosophy Test 2

Understand Gilbert Ryle's notion of a "category mistake" to critique the idea that the "mind" is more than just a way of referring to the sum total of the various mental properties we already talk about, and the ways they relate.

s a "mind" something other than just the sum total of all such operations? Are we being sloppy with our language when we use the word "mind" to refer to something in addition to all of these various operations?

What is the difference between fatalism and causal determinism?

Fatalism says the future will happen as it will happen regardless of what you try to do. Causal determinism simply says all events are caused by prior events, some of which are your actions.

What was the argument made in the lecture that the Bible does not appear to promote Cartesian dualism, despite it being the most popular view among Christians today? What view of the mind and body did the lecture claim the Bible actually promotes?

Most Biblical scholars agree that the Biblical picture of a person is non-dualistic, soul-body unity. The biblical view is that man is a unity; he is a unity of soul, body, flesh, mind, etc. all together constituting the whole man

In Personal Identity Theory, what is the difference between accidental properties and essential properties?

Accidental properties: Properties a thing can lose without ceasing to be the same thing, or ceasing to exist. (e.g. your arm, your hair, your eyesight?) Essential properties: Properties a thing cannot lose without ceasing to be the same thing, or ceasing to exist.(Your entire body? Consciousness? Memory?)

What are the four basic steps in the libertarian approach to free will?

1.Distinguish event-causation from agent-causation 2.Deny that agent causation can be reduced to physical causation 3.Acknowledge science may be right about matter being all there is, and our minds have totally physical origins 4.Point out the uniqueness of "agent causation" for solving the determinism/indeterminism conundrum.

What is Locke's tale of the Princess and the Cobbler supposed to show?

If we could download the entire contents of your brain, (memories, ideas, etc.) into a different body ,then you either have to say that would no longer be you, or give upon the body theory of identity.

Understand Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, and how it was supposed to cast doubt on the validity of the Turing test.

A person (or machine) in the room with a very detailed rule book could successfully imitate speaking and understanding Chinese to fool real speakers of Chinese, but we would NOT say that being in the room Chinese

What is panpsychism as a theory of the mind, and what is one of its possible virtues?

Not every physical thing has consciousness, but every physical thing, down to the subatomic level, has "mental properties". Avoids the need to explain where mental properties come from, or when they got started (a la, say, evolution), because they have been present in the most basic constituents of the universe since the beginning of time.

What problem with the psychological continuity theory of identity is Parfit's Transporter Tale supposed to expose?

Would an atom for atom copy of you with your consciousness create a second you? Isn't this just a copy of you? Phycological continuity does not guarantee numerical identity.

What is the soul theory of identity?

To be one and the same person you must have one and the same soul

What was the passage from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, about?

Living an eternal life

What are some of the virtues of the identity theory?

1. It's a simpler and more conservative theory because a) it doesn't assume the existence of a mysterious non-detectable mental "substance" (supernatural stuff),and b) it fits well with existing scientific theory and methods of studying cognition. 2.Consistent with the fact that we have no solid evidence that the mind survives the death of the brain.

What are some of the complications and other thought experiments that spell trouble for a simple Body Theory of identity?

Comas, identical twins swapping brains, multiple personality disorder, would downloading your mind count as immortality?

Be able to explain Descartes' inconceivability and indivisibility arguments against the mind being identical to the body, and the objections we considered in the recorded lecture.

Conceivability: It is conceivable to exist without my body, therefore my body isn't essential, it is inconceivable to exist without my mind, so therefore my mind is essential to me to me. An objection is that it is a deductive argument. Can we really conceive what it would be like not to have a body? Indivisibility: Bodies are divisible but minds aren't, therefore the mind and body aren't the same. Objection: The mind can be divided physically. doesn't prove that minds can exist independently from the body.

What are some of functionalism's supposed virtues?

Does not limit minds to organisms with carbon based brains. Could provide an alternative route to Cartesian dualism for escaping (mental) death.

Why might the principle of using Occam's razor lead one to cast doubt on the soul theory of identity?

Does postulating a soul do any explanatory work in helping us understand what makes someone one and the same person (for we recognize the same person when we see them)? Why believe in "soul stuff"?

How did Clarence Darrow make use of the doctrine of Determinism?

He used the doctrine of determinism to save his clients from the death penalty arguing that the murder they committed was out of their control due to determinism

How is giving primacy to 1st-person experience supposed to get around the free will/determinism problem?

From the "subjective perspective", free will is a brute reality.

What is the "problem of interaction" that a Cartesian dualist faces, and how do epiphenomenalists propose to solve it?

How can an immaterial mind interact with a material brain/body? For example, how does the immaterial mind cause neurotransmitters to fluctuate? One proposed solution to the interaction problem—there is no interaction. The mind arises out of, and is caused by, the brain, but it is merely an ineffective byproduct of physical processes.

What are some of the questions in a modern version of the "problem of other minds"?

How is it possible to know that there are other minds in the world? What would count as evidence that an AI creation had a mind LIKE YOU HAVE A MIND? Would such creations show that our minds (brains)are really just complex machines?

What example did Professor Max use in lecture both on this day and on the last day of the Free Will section to illustrate how some philosophers don't believe mental properties can be reduced to physical properties?

I have no clue. Falling in love with an AI? Turing test?

How does John Hick attempt to refute Determinism?

If determinism is true, no beliefs are rational, including the belief that determinism is true

What are the two horns of the free will/determinism dilemma?

Indeterminism and hard determinism

Why might we want to reject the philosopher's quest for figuring out personal identity and instead focus on psychological continuity?

Isn't Psychological continuity what ultimately matters to us, not a perfectly coherent theory of personal identity that can handle every (bizarre) thought experiment philosophers come up with?

What might be the pragmatist's approach to the philosopher's free will debate?

It's a pragmatic certainty. We have no choice but to believe much of life is up to us, even if we can also be lead to believe upon reflection perhaps it is not.

What Eastern tradition also seems to teach that the self is an illusion?

It's an illusion, tied up with ego, and is escapable. There are no continuous substances. Everything is constantly changing, there is nothing for your thoughts or your mind to belong to

What leads David Hume to doubt the existence of a self?

never observed or directly experienced, so it's just another convenient and perhaps inescapable fiction. We have no experience of a simple, individual impression that we can call the self

What are Linear, Multi-Active, and Cyclical time and what cultures are the associated with? What sorts of issues might these different conceptions of time generate when people from different cultures interact.

Linear time (NA, Northern Europe, UK) is a precious commodity, life is a journey, time is money, move fast with it Multi-active time (southern Europe, Latin and arab world) is less adhering to schedules and punctuality, subjective time Cyclic time (some Eastern cultures) is never a scarce commodity as it comes back around, we live our lives in cycles,

What is the emergent materialism theory of the mind, and what is one of its virtues?

Mental properties are emergent properties that arise out of sufficiently complex physical properties, but are not reducible to those physical properties. Can preserve our intuition that mental states—our desire, beliefs, intentions—effect our behavior.

What is the double aspect theory of mental states, and what makes it different from all the other theories we considered?

Mental properties are not emergent. They are not properties arising out of material objects. Rather, mental and physical properties are two different aspects of a single underlying "substance" that is neither physical nor mental.

What is functionalism?

Mental states are functional states. Minds are (like) computer programs. The mind is to the brain as software is to its hardware. Your mind is the software that is running on your (computer) brain.

What is property dualism, and how does it differ from Cartesian dualism?

Mental states have both physical and nonphysical properties, but those nonphysical properties are not grounded in ghostly stuff, in supernatural substance, they are rather their own primitive (i.e. irreducible) kind of property. Property dualism differs from substance dualism in that it takes mental states to be states of physical objects. It's still grounded in materialism but does NOT reduce the mind to nothing but physical properties.

What is the second major objection to the identity theory of the mind?

Minds and brains don't seem to have exactly the same properties. The subjective 1st person character of conscious experience, what it is like to be you at this moment, is not capturable by describing some brain state, even if the brain state and conscious experience are strictly correlated.

What is the objection to identity theory sometimes referred to as carbon chauvinism?

P!: If our minds are just material systems obeying natural laws, then it is physically possible that the brain's "programming" could be instantiated in some other kind of system, say a silicone-based one. (Lewis'Pained Martian—read) P2: The identity theory states that a mind is a brain. C: So the identity theory is not complete by itself; Other "hardware" could do the same work. Having a carbon-based brain is not necessary for having a mind.

What is the difference in philosophy between numerical identity and qualitative identity?

numerically identity: two objects are numerically identical if and only if they are one and the same qualitative identity: two objects are qualitatively identical if and only if they share the same properties

Be able to explain the last theory of identity we looked at, the self not as a "thing", but a self-organizing process, especially the idea that the self is just the narrative we construct of our lives.

The "self" is constituted by the narrative, it just IS the narrative, the ongoing story your mind constructs that weaves your thoughts, feelings, and desires into a coherent whole.

What was the standard version of the original Turing test, and what was it designed to show?

The "standard interpretation" of the Turing Test, in which player C, the interrogator, is given the task of trying to determine which player - A or B - is a computer and which is a human. The interrogator is limited to using the responses to written questions to make the determination. The goal of the computer programmers is to fool the interrogator into believing the computer is human.• Turing Test (Alan Turing-1950): The "imitation game". If player C can't tell which player is a human and which is a computer, then the machine can think.

What was the "Total Turing Test"?

The computer being tested would have to be able to do everything that a normal human being does, including walking, riding a bicycle, swimming, dancing, playing a musical instrument, and so on. Only a computer with a robot body could do that.

Why might Causal Indeterminism present an unsatisfying answer to the Free Will debate?

The doctrine that not all events are strictly causally determined, and free actions are those which are not strictly causally determined

If the experience of feeling free is almost universal, why can't we use that as proof that we do indeed have free will?

The experience of free will could be an illusion, just like a hypnotized person can experience themselves making choices when they really aren't

What was LePlace's Superbeing, and how was it used in the Free Will lecture?

The future is in principle knowable, even if we never develop the technology, understanding of nature, and computational power to make successful predictions.

What makes the Malagasy experience of time different from all the others we discussed?

The future is unknowable, the present is vaguely understood, and the past is known and influential. Situations trigger events as they occur, ex. the bus leaves when it's full.

What is the doctrine of multiple realizability?

The mind can be realized in things other than brains. P1: If the identity theory were true, then it would be impossible for anything without a brain to have amind. P2: But, as Lewis's Martian thought experiment shows, things without (organic, carbon-based)brains can have minds. C: So the identity theory is NOT true; having a brain is not a necessary condition for having a mind.

What is the doctrine of hard determinism?

There are no free actions. Free will is an illusion

What do philosophers mean by the "intentionality" of mental states, and which theories of mind seem especially lacking in accounting for it?

There is more to thinking than just running a program of successful inputs and outputs. Mental states must have the property of being directed on our about something. Functionalism and Eliminative Materialism.

What are the two "nuclear options" for dealing with doubts about the continuity or very existence of the self, one expressed by Hume, the other by Heraclitus?

There is no self (Hume) I have a self but it is in constant flux (Heraclitus)

What are the two options/limitations Martin Benjamin suggests might be true regarding our attempts to solve the free will debate?

We currently lack the understanding to solve the problem or we may never have the capacity to understand the problem

Explore the notion that it might be hard to truly imagine a mind existing without a body.

What are you imagining? Remember, no ghostly quasi—physical body, no astral body, for that's still a (material) body. You have to imagine something with no physical attributes whatsoever. You can't imagine existing in any physical place. And you can't have sensations. What's left of your mind?

What are some of the complications of grounding personal identity in a Memory Theory of Personal Identity?

What if you lose all memory of some part of your life? Do you stop being the same person as the person you were at that time of your life? Does a persons identity change with total amnesia? What about false memories? What if we could experience other's memories first hand?

What analogy to the physical world does Raymond Smullyan make in his dialogue, "Is God a Taoist?", to argue for free will?

a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction.

What is Leibniz's King of China Thought experiment suppose to show?

having the same soul is not a sufficient condition for personal identity