Philosophy of mind midterm

What are the two main problems facing Philosophical Behaviorism?

One problem for the behaviorist was that there seems to be no such thing as the distinctive behavior associated with a single mental state. accounting for qualia

Philosophical Behaviorism

The Behaviorist answers: What all pains have in common is a certain behavioral property. • Two organisms are both in pain just in case they exhibit the behavior patterns characteristic of pain (e.g. escape behavior, withdrawal behavior, and so on). • This is because, for the Behaviorist, mental kinds (e.g. pains) are just behavioral kinds (e.g. tendencies to groan, wince, escape, etc.).

Dualism

encompasses several different theories, all agree that essential nature of mind resides in something nonphysical. Most common theory among public and religions

Identity Theory of Mind

every type of mental state is identical to some type of physical state or thing (pain in mind and wiring in brain -c-fiber oscillations) The Identity Theorist answers: what all pains have in common is a certain neurobiological property, namely, being an instance of C - fiber excitation. One problem for the identity theorist is that pain might turn out to be correlated with different brain processes in different creatures.

Interactionism

form of dualism. mental states can cause various physical thigns and can be affected by various physical things . mind is distinct from brain, but two can causally interact, pain can. cause various physical things and can be affected by some physical things

What is Leibniz's Law? Give an example of an application of this law in arguing against the Identity Theory of Mind. Is the argument convincing?

if a is identical to b, they have the same properties, and conversely if not all same properties they're not the same (identity theory)

What is the difference between type-identity and token-identity theories of mind? Which of these theories would the functionalist be more likely to accept, and why?

materialist functionalists still adhere to a kind of identity theory: token identity theory It asserts that mental events can be grouped into types, and can then be correlated with types of physical events in the brain. For example, one type of mental event, such as "mental pains" will, presumably, turn out to be describing one type of physical event (like C-fiber firings). Type physicalism is contrasted by token identity physicalism, which argues that mental events are unlikely to have "steady" or categorical biological correlates. These positions make use of the philosophical type-token distinction (e.g., Two persons having the same "type" of car need not mean that they share a "token", a single vehicle). Type physicalism can now be understood to argue that there is identicalness between types, whereas token identity physicalism says one can only describe a particular, unique, brain event.

Functionalism

mental states are described by their job description Claims that, like concepts of artifacts & biological concepts, our concepts of mental states are silent about the physical - biological mechanisms that realize or implement them. • Our concepts of mental states define mental states by their job descriptions or causal roles . • Simplifying a bit, pain may be defined by the job - description "tissue - damage detector": a pain is anything that's caused by tissue - damage and causes an alarm system (e.g. a belief) to go off, as well as some behavior (e.g. wincing). More concrete illustration: the property of being a mousetrap is a functional property because it can be given the following functional definition: x is a mousetrap = def x has some property P such that P enables x to trap and hold or kill mice. • In short, anything is a mouse trap if it takes a live mouth as input and transforms it into a dead mouse, which it returns as an output. • There are indefinitely many "realizers" of the property of being a mousetrap! On its own, functionalism doesn't rule out dualism. It is in principle compatible with a view on which mental states such as pain could be realized in a non - physical way. • But many functionalists are materialists, who want to place constraints on possible realizations of mental states. One example of such a constraint is realization physicalism .

Absent Qualia Argument (Chinese Nation)

objection to functionalism because it purports to show that it's possible for something to be functionally equivalent to a human being and yet have no conscious experience. Ned Block: "Suppose we convert the government of China to functionalism, and we convince its officials that it would enormously enhance their international prestige to realize a human mind for an hour." • Imagine that the people of China mimic the functional organization of the brain. Would there now be another mind on Earth? Intuitively, No . • This is known as the "absent qualia objection" to functionalism.

Property Dualism

pain is property of brain, but not irreducible to physical property The mind is not a distinct thing/substance from the brain. Rather, the brain has two fundamentally different kinds of properties: physical and mental ones. • Mental properties can never be reduced to or explained solely in terms of the concepts of physical science. • Understanding the mind will require an entirely new and independent field of inquiry, with its own proprietary set of concepts.

Eliminativism

qualia do not exist Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist and have no role to play in a mature science of the mind. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted.

Multiple Realizability Argument

target is identity theory, different creatures cannot be in same mental states. functionalism is true or form of identity theory is false

Substance/Cartesian Dualism

two substances (mental and physical- thoughts and extensions, respectively) cartesian view- they interact Mental states (e.g. thoughts, visual images) and mental processes (e.g. thinking, imagining) owe their special character from their being states and processes of this nonphysical kind of thing On Descartes' view, the physical state of your body (e.g. your sense organs) can cause various experiences in you (e.g. of visual/auditory/ tactile sort) . • You, in turn, can cause your body to move in certain ways (e.g. by thinking or making decisions). • Crucially, however, you are not your body (or any part of your body, such as your brain) but a nonspatial thinking thing.

Elisabeth of Bohemia's Argument from Causal Interaction

"I admit that it would be easier for me to concede matter and extension to the soul than to concede the capacity to move a body and to be moved by it to an immaterial thing ." (From a letter to Descartes) If mental things are radically different from material things, to the point that they have no mass/shape/position/ etc, then how could they causally influence material things at all? • Conversely, how can something spatial and extended causally influence an entirely nonspatial mental thing?

How do David Lewis' Madman and Martian cases undermine materialism? How does David Lewis' theory of mind accommodate these cases?

Although the madman and martian challenge the functionalist and the identity theorist. The madman particularly challenges the functionalist, and the martian the identity theorist. According to lewis, the martian feels pain because "although he does not share our brain structure, he is in some state (e.g. inflation of feet cavities) that plays the CAUSAL ROLE OF PAIN in humans. The madman feels pain because he has a brain state that causes NORMAL HUMANS to wince, groan, feel distracted, motivate avoidance of the state, etc. (although may have different inputs and outputs)

What is the difference between Reductionism and Eliminativism?

Elimination : There is no such thing as X! • Reduction : There is such a thing as X but it is nothing more than Y (which is more real/basic/ fundamental than X). • When we talk about reductionism in this course, we will be talking about reductive materialism . But, in fact, Idealism is a form of reductionism, too. Examples of Elimination: witches, demons, entities of superseded scientific theories. • Examples of Reduction : pre - Socratic attempts (Thales, Anaximenes, Democritus), cells to collections of atoms and molecules, life to a chemical process, mental illness to chemical imbalance. • Example of a (highly) contested category : Race. Is it something biological/psychological (reduction) or is there no such thing (elimination)? Notice that reduction requires a very tight explanatory connection: every single aspect of the reduced thing can be completely understood in terms of the things it reduces to. • Important Corollary : if the mental reduces to the physical, knowing everything physical about an experience is knowing everything about the experience, full stop. • This is what the Mary thought experiment aims to challenge.

Zombie/Conceivability Argument

Few people, if any, think zombies actually exist. But many hold that they are at least conceivable, and some that they are possible. It seems that if zombies really are possible, then physicalism is false and some kind of dualism is true. For many philosophers that is the chief importance of the zombie idea. But it is also valuable for the sharp focus it gives to philosophical theorizing about consciousness and other aspects of the mind (see for example Howell 2013; Kriegel 2011; Stoljar 2006; Tye 2008). Use of the zombie idea against physicalism also raises more general questions about the relations between imaginability, conceivability, and possibility. Finally, zombies raise epistemological difficulties: they reinstate the 'other minds' problem. Some anti-physicalists believe their opponents' commitment makes them turn a blind eye to the difficulties: Some may be led to deny the possibility [of zombies] in order to make some theory come out right, but the justification of such theories should ride on the question of possibility, rather than the other way round (Chalmers 1996, 96). On the other hand, some physicalists believe the zombie idea exerts an irrational grip on anti-physicalist thinking, so that it is tempting to regard anti-physicalist arguments as rationalizations of an intuition whose independent force masks their tendentiousness (Loar 1990/1997, 598).

Explain an objection to one of the arguments you explained in Part II (Arguments). Do you find it convincing? Why/why not?

Like the former objection, this objection denies that if Mary learns something upon her release, she learns some new fact (Premise 3). • There is a difference between factual knowledge and knowledge - how: a scientist may know all the facts about riding a bike without knowing how to ride a bike. • What Mary learns could be an ability (e.g. to recognize color experiences), rather than any factual knowledge. Gertler's Reply : Mary is able to recognize a seeing red experience precisely because she knows what it is like. • Knowing what it is like explains her ability to recognize other experiences like it. • However, if knowing what the experience is like explains the recognitional ability, it cannot be the same as that ability, for nothing can explain itself (we do say that some things are self - explanatory, but that just means that they are obvious, or need no explanation). This objection is convincing, knowing all facts about something can be useful, but when it comes to purely subjective experiences, qualia, and ALL the facts about them, are impossible to know until these experiences and qualia are fully experienced.

Must a Functionalist be a Materialist? Why/Why not?

Materialism is the position that everything is physical, so mind must also be physical. There is no soul or ghost in the machine that we can't interact with or observe; the brain and the body is all that we've got. Functionalism is the position that mental states should be defined not by how they're implemented, but by their function within the system that they find themselves. So pain might be the state which is present during bodily injury, causes an agent to recoil from injuring stimuli, makes the agent desire to avoid that stimuli in future, etc., etc. To the functionalist, it doesn't matter whether this state is implemented within neurons or silicon. Either way, it's pain. In regards to the relationship between materialism and functionalism, many functionalists are materialists (or physicalists), but there's nothing inherent in functionalism which forces its adherents to be materialists. On its own, functionalism doesn't rule out dualism. It is in principle compatible with a view on which mental states such as pain could be realized in a non-physical way.

What is Elemental Property Dualism? What reason is there for a Dualist to opt for this view?

Regarding mental properties as emergent properties of the brain is in tension with regarding them as irreducible. • One way to resolve the tension is to deny that mental properties appear only once a certain level of evolutionary complexity is reached. • On this view, mental properties are fundamental properties of reality — properties that have been around since the universe's inception, on par with other fundamental properties such as length, mass, charge, time, etc.

Searle's Chinese Room Argument

Searle inhabits a room that contains a detailed rule book for how to manipulate Chinese symbols. • He does not know what the symbols mean, but he can distinguish them by their shape. • If you pass Chinese symbols into the room, he will manipulate them according to the rules, and pass back a different set of Chinese symbols. As a result, this manipulation of symbols looks like a conversation in chinese from the outside. Notice that there is nothing special about the mental state of "understanding" here. • Searle would say that implementing the Chinese room software does not, by itself, suffice to give a system any intentional states: no genuine beliefs, or desires, or intentions, or hopes or fears, or anything. • It does not matter how detailed and complex that software is.

Machine Functionalism

The machine table for the coke machine captures what a coke machine essentially is. • Similarly, the (far more complex) machine table for the mind captures what a mind essentially is. • Individual Mental States (e.g. pains, hopes, desires) are just states of the incredibly complicated machine table for the mind. To be a pain is to be a state that responds to inputs, delivers outputs and interacts with states in a way that accords with one of the machine table states. The functionalist about the mind thinks that all there is to having thoughts is implementing some very complicated program. • In a slogan, our brain is the hardware and our minds are the software. • In us, this software is implemented by a human brain, but it could also be implemented on other hardware, like a Martian brain or a computer. And if it were, then the Martian brain and the computer would have real thoughts, too.

Epiphenomenalism

The oldest version of property dualism. • Holds that mental properties cannot cause any physical activity (e.g. in the brain) but rather 'ride above' such activity (the Greek prefix "epi-" means "above"). They are akin to the steam that emerges from a train and that does not have any causal effect on the train in return • The view tries to strike a bargain between a rigorous scientific approach to the explanation of behavior and the reality of irreducibly mental properties.

What are Qualia and why do they present a difficulty for Materialism?

The ways things look, sound and smell, the way it feels to have a pain, and more generally, what it's like to have experiential mental states. ('qualia' is the plural of 'quale'.) • Experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions, thoughts and desires. Their existence seems indisputable! • And yet, Daniel Dennett (1942 - ) disputed it using the example of acquired tastes: can we tell whether it's the qualia or our opinion of it that changes?

Knowledge Argument (Mary the Color Scientist)

While in the black - and - white room, Mary knows all of the physical facts about color experience. 2. Mary learns something about color experience upon her release. 3. If Mary learns something about color experience upon her release, she does not know all of the facts about color experience while in the room. 4. Mary does not know all of the facts about color experience while in the room. (from 2 and 3) 5. There are facts about color experience that are not physical facts. (from 1 and 4) 6. If materialism is true, then all facts are physical facts. 7. Therefore, materialism is false. (from 5 and 6) Jackson: "it seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it." In particular, she will learn what it's like to see colors, e.g. what red is like. • Jackson concludes that, since materialism says that all facts are physical facts, materialism is false.

Materialism

all facts are physical facts Materialism, also called physicalism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism that holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

Argument from Neural Dependence of Mind

argument against substance dualism acIf there really is a distinct and materially independent entity in which reasoning, emotion, and consciousness take place, then we should expect these aspects of the mind to be relatively invulnerable to direct control or pathology by manipulation/damage to the brain. • In fact, the opposite is true: alcohol can impair judgment, chemicals can affect our emotions, anesthetics and stimulants can affect our consciousness. • This is to be expected if reason, emotion, and consciousness are activities of the brain itself. But it is hard to see why this would be so, if they are activities of an essentially immaterial entity.

"What Is It Like to be a Bat" Argument

argument for qualia, experience is purely subjective, only bats know what its like to be a bat; conclusion is materialism-everything is physical (material), mental states can't be understood like physical things can be His argument aims to establish that subjective experiences cannot be accounted for by physical science. what it is like to be a bat is purely subjective and since physical science describes only objective phenomena, what it is like to be a bat cannot be accounted for by physical science

Inverted Qualia Argument

behave in same way, but experiences are complete inverses from each other e.g. someone sees blue as yellow and vice versa, but names for these things are same, but qualia are different

Dennett's Acquired Taste Argument

differences in qualia or judgements/opinions It is familiarly said that beer, for example, is an acquired taste; one gradually trains oneself--or just comes--to enjoy that flavor. What flavor? The flavor of the first sip? No one could like that flavor, an experienced beer drinker might retort: Beer tastes different to the experienced beer drinker. If beer went on tasting to me the way the first sip tasted, I would never have gone on drinking beer! Or to put the same point the other way around, if my first sip of beer had tasted to me the way my most recent sip just tasted, I would never have had to acquire the taste in the first place! I would have loved the first sip as much as the one I just enjoyed. If we let this speech pass, we must admit that beer is not an acquired taste. No one comes to enjoy the way the first sip tasted. Instead, prolonged beer drinking leads people to experience a taste they enjoy, but precisely their enjoying the taste guarantees that it is not the taste they first experienced.