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Summary 8 Questions about the Conscious Mind
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8 questions about the conscious mindChapter 1 – What is the conscious mind?
Mental states together form the conscious mind. Mental states like experiencing, thinking and
feeling.
All experiences have qualitative aspects: qualia. Also described as “what-it-is-likeness”- Nagel.
1. These qualia describe the first type of mental state: phenomenal experiences: characterised
by qualitative feel. This first type of mental state is formed by phenomenal experiences,
which are characterised by their what-it-is-likeness.
2. The cognitive state is the 2nd type of mental state. These are primarily characterised by
intentionality (aboutness). Propositional attitudes are also a part of intentionality.
A propositional attitude is a certain stance towards a proposition, or meaning of a sentence.
Two propositional attitudes:
- You know
- You believe
3. Emotion. Possesses both what-it-is-likeness and aboutness.
Unconscious states have the ability to become conscious. Like a memory. Some states of the brain,
like the one that controls your heartbeat, are neither conscious or unconscious. They are not
conscious but also don’t have the ability to become conscious.
First problem: How does the conscious mind fit into the physical world? Or narrowed down: how do
qualia and intentionality fit into the physical world?
It is by no means evident what their place in nature are. The next chapters discuss different s
stances on this topic.
Chapter 2 – Can the mind function separately from the
brain?
“I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it” – René Descartes
The separability thesis: or dualism, the mind can function separately from the body.
Skeptics: philosophers that claim not to know anything for certain. Descartes was not satisfied with
this conclusion. He distrusted other humans, since they could have fooled him in the past, and also
his senses. But, by looking for certainty he started doubting everything. He concluded that there is
only one certainty: the fact that nothing is certain.
He did not doubt he existed, though! Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. On this foundation, he
built the rest of his knowledge. He says that whatever he perceives clearly and distinctively is true.
One of his ideas is that of God, and since he himself is an imperfect being he could not be the origin
of that idea, so that must be God. This is proof for the existence of God.
, Descartes says: there are two substances: something that can exist on its own.
1. Res cogitans: thinking substance
2. Res extensa: physical substance
Extensa’s essential property is that is can be extended: it has a place in space. Bumping sets things in
motion. The substances can exist separately.
The interaction problem: how do mind and body interact? Princess Elizabeth asked Descartes how
the soul of a human can make the spirits of a body produce voluntary actions. By spirits she means
the animal spirits which are small particles in our nerves and blood vessels that move.
Descartes says that a soul moves a body not by bumping into it, because a soul has not extension.
Elizabeth is still not satisfied with this explanation and in the end Descartes says it is
incomprehensible for humans to see that the soul and body are a unity, and at the same time
separate.
According to occasionalists, like Malebranche, the one true cause of everything is God. All events are
occasional: an event that is an occasion for God to cause another event. In their view there is no
causal interaction between body and mind, it just seems like there is.
Parallelism: mind and body are made to move parallel to each other.
All in all dualism isn’t really taken seriously, since there is no proof for it or the proof that is given is
God. Dualist do argue that parapsychology might give new reasons for substance dualism.
Parapsychology investigates the paranormal, and substance dualism is accepted as a default.
Conclusion: dualisms problem is that there is no explanation for interaction between mind and body,
but it needs no because there is no empirical evidence that this is the case anyway. It doesn’t take
science seriously.
Chapter 3 – Is there only one mind?
Monism argues that there is only substance, because of this the interaction problem is not a thing
anymore.
There are different versions of monism. The most accepted in modern philosophy is materialism or
physicalism: everything in the world is physical.
The second type is idealism: everything in the world is mental. A big supporter of this belief is
Berkeley. His position in the mind-body debate is that the physical depends on the mental.
Berkeley responded to a problem following the views of Locke. He, an empiricist, claims that objects
are not really how we see them, it’s just that we perceive them that way. This counts for basically all
properties.
Primary properties are that what things really have. Secondary properties are what things don’t
actually have but what we ascribe to them when perceiving them. Temperature is primary, whereas
feeling warm or cold is secondary. Secondary depends on the perceiver.
There is a small problem considering primary properties- we do not perceive them. We don’t
perceive volume or shape. Locke said there is always a substance underlying these, but as an
empiricist, how did he know? So, are there even primary qualities?
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