Summary Philosophy and psychology

SUMMARY PHILOSOPHY

LECTURE 1 - PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND SUBSTANCE DUALISM
 Mind = referring to all states, processes, events, capacities
= mental aspect  person who you are

 Mind-Body problem = the mind has characteristics that the body does not have & vice versa:
Mental states are conscious and some have:
 Phenomenal quality =  Chalmers
o Pain/itch
 Problem: Hard problem
 Intentionality =  Brentano
o I believe that is a table
 Problem: AI
 Kreitler (2018): Mind-Body is implicit entailed in different psychological frameworks and the methods
they employ
o There is nothing but the body/brain
o There is nothing but the mind
o Body and mind exist in parallel & interact
 Substance dualism = body and soul are distinct
- Immaterial soul and material body
o Mind/Soul are mental processes
 Thinking/believing/perceiving/remembering/experiencing
o Body/Brain are sensory- and motoric processes
- Core of many religions
- Requires that mind and body can exist as separate entities
- Arguments in favor of substance dualism:
o Leibniz’ Law = identity of indiscernible (ononderscheidbaarheid)
 x = y  x & y has same properties
 Mind and body do not have the same properties





 Doesn’t work for psychological states: it’s unjustified leap of
epistemology (study of what we know)  ontology (study of what really exists)
 Intentional Fallacy = intentionele drogreden
o Descartes:
 Bodily states and processes have a spatial location/extension
 Problem: Identity theory
 Mental entities are rational entities
 Method of radical doubt: Cogito ergo sum = I think, therefore I am
o Interactionism = mind and body continuously interact
 Interaction problem: How can something non-spatial (mind) interact with something
spatial (pineal gland)?  Causal interaction needs spatial contact
- Dualistic alternatives:
o Interactionism
o Parallelism = mind and body similar coordinated with no interaction  caused by god
 Leibniz
o Occassionalism = Body and mind are different substances that do not interact directly with
each other  god mediates between the substances
 Malebranch
o Dualistic Monism = Everything is made of the same substance (mind and body physical, but
different characteristics/qualia)
 Idealism = everything that exists is mind-dependent

,  Materialism = Everything that exists matter: all processes reducible to matter
LECTURE 2 - VARIETIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

 Reductive physicalism = There are only physical properties in the world
 Non-reductive physicalism = mind is physical, but mental properties can’t be reduced to physical
properties
 Consciousness:
o Creature consciousness = sentience, wakefulness, self-awareness
o State consciousness = transitive, awareness of one’s mental state
 Access consciousness = direct accessibility for control of action/speech/thought
 Beliefs/thinking computers
 Phenomenal consciousness = subjective character of experience (bv: dreams)
 Qualia = Qualitative aspects of consciousness (visual
experience/taste-/olfactory/pain/etc.)
- Only subjectively accessible (only you know what’s like to feel pain)
- Specific experiential character (it’s specific what’s like to feel pain)
- Well-defined temporal boundaries (when pain over, quale gone)

 Easy problems of consciousness can be explained by cognitive science in terms of functional and
neural organization and their realization  access consciousness
 Hard problem of consciousness a simple explanation of function leaves the question open: why is it
accompanied by experience?

 Arguments against explaining (phenomenal) consciousness
 Zombie argument: Qualia are not physical properties
 Zombies have all my physical properties but lack qualia

 Not possible to have exact same behavior/internal structure while not having same qualia
 Why so sure that we can conceive of something that it is possible
 Knowledge argument: Qualia must be knowledge of something non-physical
 Bats echolocation
We kunnen precies weten hoe iets werkt, maar niet hoe het daadwerkelijk is om het te ervaren
 Thought experiment (Frank Jackson): kleur ervaren vs onderzoeken
 Maybe Mary did not know everything (knowing what it’s like to experience red)
 Explanatory Gap Argument: qualia are kind of nonphysical property
Can’t explain why consciousness occurs with certain neurological processes
 Unclear why and how the brain gives rise to consciousness:
How can we explain how something feels?
 There is a science of consciousness:
Global workspace theory = a central processor that mediates communication between a host of
specialized nonconscious modules

 Property dualism = person is not composed of 2 different substances
- Cognitive systems have physical and non-physical properties (qualia)
- Non-physical properties are not reducible to physical properties and vice versa
Epiphenomenalism = qualia are not causally efficacious properties and consciousness is causally
irrelevant
- We can give a full physical explanation of every physical event

 Reductive materialism vs substance dualism:
all that exists is composed of physical particles  fundamental parts of the world
 Reductive materialism vs non-reductive materialism:
mental properties are identical to physical properties and are fully explained by it
 Reductive materialism vs eliminativism: mental states exists, can be reduced to physical states

, LECTURE 3 - IDENTITY THEORY
Identity theory = mental states are identical to brain states
- Mentalistic language is neutral, this is not argument for/against substance dualism
- Ontologically simpler than substance dualism
- Mind-body problem: mind is identical to brain processes that are part of natural world

 Numerical identity = one & the same
 Qualitative identity = similar (the same kind)
 A priori = vooraf, zonder kennis
 A priori identity = definition = knowledge of a fact, without proof because of experience
 Murderer of Jones is the murderer of jones
 A bachelor is an unmarried man
 A posteriori = Achteraf gezien, terugwerken van gevolg naar oorzaken
 A posteriori identity = Knowledge because of experience
 Murderer of Jones is the owner of a grocery store
 Identity statements (A posteriori identity)= brute facts of nature that need to be discovered by
science
 Water is H2O
 Phineas Gage – Damasio (D’Escartes’ Error)
 Lesion Studies:
- Broca’s area: speech
- Wernicke’s area: language comprehension

 One-to-one mapping = one brain area is one cognitive function
 Modularity = how brain areas perform respective function in isolation from one another

 Type = class/category
 Dog
 Token = individual object in class/category
 My dad’s dog
 Type identity theory: every mental state of a specific type is identical to a brain state of a specific type
 can predict brain state type from mental state type and vice versa
 Every person that feels pain shares the same kind of brain state
o Numerical a posteriori type
o Challenges:
 Multiple realizability = Human beings with different types of brains can have same
types of mental states as humans  Pain (bv: bottles)
 Neural variability = significant differences between human beings
 Genetic/prenatal/environmental effects
 Neural plasticity
 Token identity theory: particular token of mental state type is identical to a particular token of a brain
state
 can’t make further assumptions
 Particular pain I feel right now is identical to the brain state of some type
o Lack of explanatory power

 Notes on brain research:
 Localism
 Globalism = specific cognitive functions identified best in widely distributed brain network
 Multifunctionality = same brain areas are involved in multiple cognitive functions
 Connectivity = processing of different cognitive functions are connected
 Many-to-many mapping = same brain area involved in multiple tasks & same task realized in different
brain areas & brain areas dynamically interact
o Mapping is not reduction
o Correlation is not explanation
 Neuro imaging: seeing is believing  researchers interpret their own findings
LECTURE 4 – FUNCTIONALISM