Philosophy of Mind - Part 2 continues after the midterm. If you want a compromised summary of the lectures, this summary is the right one.
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The summary includes all issues concerning the topic of consciousness. To evaluate whether human be...
Lecture 7.............................................................................................................................3
1. Getting the problem clear..........................................................................................................3
2. Methodological starting points..................................................................................................4
2.1. Naturalism.................................................................................................................................................4
2.2. The natural method (Flanagan)................................................................................................................4
2.3. Neo-darwinistic theory of evolution.........................................................................................................4
2.4. Induction...................................................................................................................................................4
3. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................4
Lecture 8.............................................................................................................................5
1. Consciousness – homogeneous and heterogeneous..................................................................5
2. Case study: Phantom limbs........................................................................................................5
3. Case study: Synesthesia.............................................................................................................7
4. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................7
Lecture 9: Projection part 2.................................................................................................8
1. Question pertaining to the conclusion of previous lecture........................................................8
2. Case study 1: out of body experiences.......................................................................................8
3. Case study 2: Colors and colorblindness....................................................................................9
4. Case study 3: Blind spot.............................................................................................................9
5. Strongest experience of projection..........................................................................................10
6. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................10
Lecture 10: Not conscious of things that are present.........................................................11
1. Case studies.............................................................................................................................11
1.1. Binocular rivalry......................................................................................................................................11
1.2. Change blindness....................................................................................................................................11
1.3. Inattentional blindness...........................................................................................................................11
2. Grand illusion No.2..................................................................................................................11
3. Skill theory..............................................................................................................................12
4. Evaluation skill theory.............................................................................................................13
5. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................14
Lecture 11: The other minds problem................................................................................15
1. The other minds problem........................................................................................................15
1.1. The other minds problem as a skeptical-philosophical problem...........................................................15
1.2. The other minds problem as a practical problem..................................................................................16
2. The binding problem...............................................................................................................17
3. Solutions for the problems......................................................................................................17
4. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................18
,Lecture 12: Animal consciousness & the function of consciousness....................................19
1. Animal consciousness..............................................................................................................19
1.1. Case study 1: Language in apes..............................................................................................................19
1.2. Case study 2: Color discriminating behavior..........................................................................................19
2. The experience of beauty........................................................................................................20
3. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................20
Lecture 13: The conscious self...........................................................................................21
1. Bundle- & ego-theory..............................................................................................................21
1.1. Introduction............................................................................................................................................21
1.2. The substrate theory..............................................................................................................................21
1.3. Bundle theory.........................................................................................................................................22
2. Challenge to bundle-theory: explain the illusion of the continuous self..................................22
3. Thomas Metzinger’s theory about phenomenal self................................................................22
4. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................26
,Lecture 7
1. Getting the problem clear
Cognitive states have aboutness (=intentionality)
Phenomenally conscious states have what it is likeness (=qualia)
Phenomenal consciousness
o What-it-is-likeness = Qualia
o Phenomenology how someone experiences sth. is
What is consciousness?
o John Searle
As with most words, it is not possible to give a definition of “consciousness”
in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions[.]’
‘What I mean by “consciousness” can best be illustrated by examples. When
I wake up from a dreamless sleep, I enter a state of consciousness, a state of
consciousness that continues as long as I am awake.’
o Problem:
1st example difference between being awake and being in a dreamless
sleep
We need phenomenal consciousness to guide our actions when we’re
awake; how else could we perform all these complex actions?
o Example
Parks: while sleepwalking killed a person if we are able to perform these
complex actions without consciousness what is the function of
consciousness?
o Zombies
Philosophical/phenomenal
“Imagine there is someone who looks like you, acts like you, speaks
like you, and in every detectible way behaves exactly like you, but is
not conscious” only physical copies, don’t have consciousness
There isn’t sth like to be a zombie
Zombies don’t have qualia, don’t have what it is likeness
Acting exactly in the same way we do
o Blindsight
Larry Weiskrantz: if you know which part of the brain is damaged if someone
has no consciousness (‘awareness’), then you know that this part plays a
important role when someone is consciousness;
In this case we get to know that this part of the brain is important for
the conscious processing of visual information
Two ways from eyes to brain
Evolutionary younger path (from eyes to visual cortex)
Older path processes info without consciousness
‘[T]he most obvious interpretation [of blindsight] goes something like this.
The blindseer has vision without consciousness. He is an automaton or a
partial zombie who can ‘see’ functionally but has none of the visual qualia
that go with normal seeing.’
o Conclusion
Homicidal somnambulism + blindsight show us that humans are capable
of complex behavior and process visual input
Problem: impossible to provide a definition of consciousness
Several implicit methodological starting points
, 2. Methodological starting points
2.1. Naturalism
Idea that we have to use the scientific method to solve problems and that we take its results
seriously
One result Homo sapiens has evolved
Consequences for the answers we might find to questions, also when these questions are
traditionally regarded as philosophical questions
‘Consciousness [...] is a biological feature of human and certain animal brains. It is [...] as
much a part of the natural biological order as any other biological feature such as
photosynthesis, digestion, or mitosis.”
2.2. The natural method (Flanagan)
Need an interdisciplinary method to solve problems relating to consciousness
Phenomenology the way we experience things, and what we report about our
experiences (actually not a method)
HD: can apply every method in isolation
Example: Penfield homunculus
o If we only look at the brain, then you do not know what its function is and there is no
reason to think anyone is conscious
o If we only used introspection, we would never have discovered that you need a brain
to be conscious
2.3. Neo-darwinistic theory of evolution
As a very explicit part of the natural method, we need to take the evolutionary perspective
If we say that consciousness does sth then this has to be an evolutionary function with
respect to survival and reproduction
2.4. Induction
One type of experience has an evolutionary function (e.g. experience of beauty when you
look at some human’s face), while another might not have such a function (e.g. experience of
beauty when looking at abstract art)
Reasoning from one or more cases in which A is B to the conclusion that all A are B but
sometimes long case studies are necessary
3. Conclusion
For getting a clear picture of what consciousness and the conscious self are, we use the
scientific method
Starting point clear
,Lecture 8
1. Consciousness – homogeneous and heterogeneous
Homogeneous (phenomenal) consciousness is homogeneous: every experience has what-
it-is-likeness
Heterogeneous
o All experiences have different qualia
o What-it-is-likeness of pain is different from what-it-is-likeness of chocolate chip
cookies
Conclusion: C. Is homo. and hetero. at the same time PROBLEM: if we want to know what
consciousness is, then we have to establish that for every type of consciousness individually
(pain, taste, etc.) 2nd problem: not all biological properties are adaptive, some are
epiphenomena
Side effects of natural selection
o Darwin got the idea of evolution by natural selection, bc he saw artificial selection
can have side effects (e.g. silver fox turned into “dogs”)
o Pleiotropy
“These dog-like features were side-effects. [...] To geneticists, this is not
surprising. They recognize a widespread phenomenon called ‘pleiotropy’,
whereby genes have more than one effect, seemingly unconnected. [...]
Presumably genes for floppy ears [...] are pleiotropically linked to genes for
tameness, in foxes as well as in dogs.
This illustrates a generally important point about evolution. When you notice
a characteristic of an animal and ask what its Darwinian survival value is, you
might be asking the wrong question. It could be that the characteristic you
have picked out is not the one that matters. It may have ‘come along for the
ride’, dragged along in evolution by some other characteristic to which it is
pleiotropically linked.”
o Danger: Seeing every trait as necessarily adaptive panadaptionism (Jay)
o If we make general inferences about C. We take a look at cases in which these
experiences are probably adaptive there might be many experiences that are side
effects of properties that are adaptive
2. Case study: Phantom limbs
Question: “Where is the pain?”
Answer:
o Common sense in the arm, where it seems to be
o Identity theorists/Materialism location in brain/c-fibers
o Dualist in mind, so has no location
Taking phenomenology seriously
o Pain appears to be located in thumb, but scientists say it’s in brain
o Amputees experience phantom limbs; sometimes suffer excruciating pain in a
knee, elbow or finger that doesn’t physically exist
Applying natural method to the phenomenon of phantom limbs
o Amputees often do have experiences as if the limb is still there
o Dissociation between the location of real limb and the experienced location
o Consists of all “normal” experiences
o Sometimes feeling movement in phantom limb
, o Phenomenology between 33% and 75% of all phantom limbs occur 24h after
amputation
o People who are born without limbs, also have phantom limbs
Neurology of phantom limbs
o Ramachandran developed a theory about phantom limbs, based on
Wilder Penfield
Tim Pons
Research with macaques
Dorsal rhizotomy destroy nerves that sent signals from the arm to
CNS)
After 11 years opened skull and looked at brain activity, when he
stimulated parts of the body
Touching hand no activity in the hand representation
Touching face activation in face representation and in the hand
representation
Penfield homunculus Area in the body image that represents the
hand is between the representation of face and upper arm
His own research
Found 2 representations of hand on skin
Cortical imperialism
o Moving phantom limbs ‘The commands continue to be
monitored by the parietal lobe and are felt as movements.
But they are phantom movements carried out by a phantom
arm.’
o Paralyzed phantom limbs The patient walked around in a
sling before the amputation & the brain has learned the arm
is paralyzed (‘learned paralysis’).
Formulated a hypothesis to help people to get rid of their phantom
experiences when we clench our fist, feedback from the hand tells
us when to stop clenching, but for people with no hand the motor
signals to clench just keep on going, causing the pain
Parietal lobe as monitor
o Motor cortex sends a signal to arm if you want to pick sth up
o Motor cortex also sends a signal to body image in parietal
lobe, that monitors whether the action is properly
performed
o Arm sends signal back to body image if action is actually
performed
o Simple solution make sure a “success”-signal will be sent
back to monitoring parietal lobe
Dramatic effect phantom seemed to move, and pain was eased,
even one phantom arm completely disappeared
Conclusion
Phenomenology tells us that the experience seems to be where the
arm used to be can’t be the case
Turns out that there is a neurological explanation (cortical
imperialism) that can account for the phenomena and is
corroborated by the “amputation” of phantom limb
Experience is projected to location where in normal cases the
stimulus originates projection-hypothesis
,3. Case study: Synesthesia
Synesthesia stimulation of one sensory modality automatically triggers a perception in a
second modality, in the absence of any direct stimulation to this second modality; events in
one sensory modality induce vivid experiences in another
Phenomenology of synesthesia
o According to natural method, we need to take phenomenology seriously
o Since we can’t look in people’s heads, they might fool us
o First focus on phenomenology
o E.g. tasting mint results in the tactile experiences of feeling cold columns in hands
might be fraud
Psychology of synesthesia
o Diagnostic criteria
Remains the same through time
Involuntary
Projected
Helps memory
Linked to emotions
o Synesthesia Stroop test
Neurology of synesthesia
o 2 important theories
Limbic phenomenon experiment with Cytowic with amyl nitrate (shuts
down cortex)
Cortical cross-wiring V4 active when hearing words
Different types of synesthesia
o Conceptual s. (cortical) one recognizes the meaningful sign
o Sensory synesthesia (limbic) one recognizes the shape
Conclusion:
4. Conclusion
Characterization of (phenomenal) consciousness
o Consciousness is homo- and heterogeneous every experience has what is it
likeness, but are also totally different
o As far as the homogeneous what it is likeness is concerned we have now seen 2
special case studies in which they are psychologically projected onto the normal
cause of experience
Case studies lead to conclusion that the individuals with these experiences project their
experiences to what normally would cause such experience
, Lecture 9: Projection part 2
Characterization (phenomenal) consciousness
o Consciousness is characterized (as far it is homogeneous) by what it is likeness;
o Consciousness is also heterogeneous: every experience is different;
o We have seen that in special cases the what it is likeness is projected on the normal
cause of the experiences
1. Question pertaining to the conclusion of previous lecture
Projection hypothesis phenomenal experiences are projected to normal cause of
experiences (based on previous case studies)
But does the projection thesis apply to all experiences?
Hypothesis: Yes, it applies to all experiences
2. Case study 1: out of body experiences
Only illusions experience is real, but you don’t leave your
body
Popular pseudoscientific book
o Claim: ‘in a period that there is no measurable
activity in the brain anymore and all functions of the
brain (like bodily reflexes, brain stem reflexes and
breathing) have been lost, then a clear consciousness
can be experienced independent from the brain and
body.’ (Van Lommel)
o Doesn’t provide evidence nut we do need evidence
for extraordinary claims
If we do not have data that support the thesis that there can
be consciousness in separation of the brain, and we do have
data that support the mind-body supervenience thesis
accepting materialism
Experiments have been done that show that normal people
can have (partial) OOBE’s & there seems to be a proper
materialist explanation for it
Experiment 1: Out of body experience
o Normal people with normal functioning brain has had (partial) OOBEs during
harmless experiments
o ‘We investigated bodily self-consciousness experimentally, and we now describe an
illusion during which healthy participants experienced a virtual body as if it were
their own and localized their “selves” outside of their borders at a different position
in space.’ (Lenggenhager)
o People have experiences similar to OOBE with normal functioning brains
o About 25% of the brain is used to process visual information;
o So it is no surprise that: ‘Under such conditions of multisensory conflict, vision
typically dominates over proprioception and touch[.]’ (Lenggenhager)
Experiment 2: See book
Conclusion:
o It seems to be relatively easy to create the experience of being touched on your arm
outside of your body
o This looks very much like a phantom limb supports the projection hypothesis
o Furthermore: we have a materialist explanation – our brain makes the best
interpretation, so this also supports the idea that experiences are supervenient on
brain states
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