PHI 010 Exam 2

In your opinion, should cognitive scientists be trying to solve the problem? Why or why not?

- In my opinion, I think cog scientists should be trying to solve this problem. - Cognitive Science as a sience is made up of multiple sub-categories as we've seen in the Sloan Hexagon, including philosophy and neuroscience. - I think it's important for cog scientists to differentiate b/w studying the brain like we would in neuroscience and studying the mind like we would in philosophy. - The consciousness of experience currently seems like it's more dominant in the psychology realm b/c we are still figuring out how to even study this concept as a science. - If we were able to physically look at a first-person experience in the brain, then maybe scientists would be able to integrate parts of neuroscience into experience. - Even though these subcategories are studied separately, I think it's important for cognitive scientists to think of ow they overlap. In order for scientists to think of how they overlap, we need to consider concepts from each filed of study that are currently being worked on. - Since philosophy of the mind is such a prominent filed that overlaps ideas from cog science, I think it's important to look at the 'hard' problems beings studied so that we can have access to more resources as scientists from different directions that we may knothole considered if we were isolated.

State and explain how inter theoretic reduction is supposed to integrate the space of cog sci?

- Intertheoretic reduction says that broad theories and non-fundamental sciences can be reduced to more fundamental theories. - Every theory is said to have basic statements that incorporate laws in order to be able to do reduction. - We can reduce one theory to another if they follow 2 prerequisites of having bridging principles and derivability. - Bridging principles allow us to bridge the two vocabularies of each theory. - Derivability says that we can take the laws of the lower level theory and derive the laws of the other. --> Intertheoretic reduction integrates the space of cog sic b/c we can say that in the space of cog sci there is a fundamental theory that can be reduced to other theories.

Do you agree with Chalmers that the same method of explanation will not work for (first-person) experience? Why or why not?

- Looking at the same method of explanation for the 'hard' problem of explaining consciousness from a first person perspective, which Chalmers calls experience, I agree that this method will not explain experience. - Each person's experience may be completely different from one another which would make this very difficult to functionally characterize and test as a science. - When reporting our mental state of "looking at a flower," we can give this scenario to multiple people and they should all report the same thing of "looking at a flower." - When discussing consciousness from our first-person experience, I don't see how we can scientifically test this since each individual experience is exactly that, individual. Consciousness is a subjective experience.

State/Explain how Marr's Tri-level hypothesis is supposed to integrate the space of cog science.

- Marr's ti-level hypothesis gives us a theory of how we do cog sci and what would in theory unite all the sciences. - Marr's theory starts at the computational level (most abstract) --> algorithmic level --> implementation level. This theory gives us the framework for how we can unite all the sciences w/in the space of cog sci - For ex/ the most abstract sciences such as cog psychology could operate at the computational level. - At the algorithmic level sciences that operate computationally could be implemented. - finally at the implementation level sciences less abstract like neuroscience could be implemented. - These sciences are included in the space of cog sci and this hypothesis provides the framework for how we can unite them all.

Identify/Explain one of the 'easy' kinds of consciousness.

- One of the 'easy' kinds of consciousness is having the ability to report our mental states. - this would be demonstrated by having a conscious human report verbally on some internal state. - The reason this is called 'easy' is b/c we know how to approach this scientifically, but that does mean it's an easy concept to study that we have full explanations for still.

Explain how one of the 'easy' kinds of consciousness might be functionally characterized and explained.

- Reportability of our mental states - - There are 2 ways we can functionally characterize this problem, either computationally or neurally. - we can specify the brain regions involved when reporting mental states to characterize this neurally or - we can specify the computational mechanisms that are going on when we report our mental states - An example of functionally characterizing our state would be to hand a person a flower to hold and ask them to use their visual system to look at this flower. - Then we would ask them to functionally explain what they're doing by verbally reporting, "I am looking at a flower."

What is the hard problem of consciousness and why does Chalmers think it is particularly difficult to solve?

- The hard problem of consciousness is explaining consciousness through a first person perspective which Chalmers calls experience. - Chalmers believes this is particularly difficult to solve b/c we don't know to approach this scientifically yet to even begin looking at this problem. Note: The problem w/ consciousness is its subjectivity which makes it hard to scientifically study the experience of it.

Identify 4 of the 6 features of a model

Domain-Specificity Information encapsulation Mandatory application Fast "*D*ude *I*'*M* *F*ine"

What is the most promising response to this objection to inter theoretic reduction and *why* is it promising?

In my view the most promising repose to this objection is that cog sic is still a relatively new science and one that we're working on creating laws for still. This is a promising response b/c it's to soon to judge cog sci as having fundamental laws when we're still working on deriving them.

Provide an example of information encapsulation..

Memory can be divided into categories and further divided into subcategories. For example, we could divide memory into short term and long term memory. We could then divide these categories into the types of memory involved such as explicit and implicit. We could continue to divide this broad category of memory until we get to individual brain parts responsible for these functions.

State/explain the main objection to Marr's tri-level hypothesis proposal.

The main objection in marr's theory is the need for modularity. - in order to operate at the computational level, we need to categorize particular inputs/outputs in a system. - If the brain does not decompose into neat modules where we can identify these inputs/outputs then we can't put the science of brain processing into the Marr's hypothesis.

What is the most promising response to the main objection to Marr's tri-level hypothesis and *why* is it promising?

The most promising response even w/ this objection is that for systems where we can identify the inputs/outputs easily then this may still be a good *method* to use. - If we can specify the particular inputs/outputs then we can move on to ask what the *tools and techniques* are that we could use to specify at the algorithmic level. - This provides a promising response to the main objection b/c it shows how Marr's hypothesis can still be used in the space of cog sic for systems that we can categorize w/ inputs/outputs allowing us to study cog science as a science.

State/Explain the objection to inter-theoretic reduction..

The problem w/ inter theoretic reduction is it's not clear what the fundamental theories are in cog sic and it doesn't look like we *laws* in cog sci. To be able to reduce one theory to another, laws are a requirement.