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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
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