Summary Lectures Mind part and 8 Questions about the conscious mind, ISBN: 9789461055811 Mind & Brain (840113-B-6)
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Course
Mind & Brain (840113B6)
Institution
Tilburg University (UVT)
Book
8 Questions about the conscious mind
This Document summarizes the lectures of the Mind part of the course Mind & Brain and the book 8" questions about the conscious mind". it describes the different perspectives scientists can have about the conscious mind and especially the mind-body problem.
Summery Mind & brain
General problem: How does the conscious mind fit in the physical world?
HD: we have a mind. But our intuitions may be false.
Lecture 1/chapter 1,2
What is the conscious mind?
An initial classification (three types of conscious states): (1) conscious experiences(qualia), (2) cognition
(cognitive states), (3) emotions
1. Conscious/phenomenal experiences/Qualia: qualitative aspects of experiences
- Experiences taste, colour etc.
- “what-it-is-likeness” ->phenomenal experiences (pleonasm) are characterized by
qualitative feels
- Can have experiences without intentionality (aboutness)
2. Cognitive states: have intentionality (aboutness)
- Two meanings of “intentionality”:
- 1.wanting to do something on purpose
- 2.thoughts about something
- There are discrete entities
- Propositional attitudes: stances towards a proposition (means meaning, knowing,
hoping)
3. Emotion: feel about something/someone
- Combination of the two
We might need to revise it to learn more about the mind
->they are defined by qualia and intentionality
Conscious and the unconscious mind
States of unconscious mind can become conscious given the right circumstances (example: memory)
-there are states which aren’t mental states because of the lack the ability to become conscious states
(heartbeat)
The mind-body problem:
Problem 1: How does qualia fit in the physical world?
Problem 2: How does intentionality fit in the physical world?
Possible positions in the debate:
1. Substance-dualism: the mind and the body are
independent of each other (MIND1);
2. Idealism: the physical world is dependent on the mental
world (MIND2);
3. Behaviourism: the mind is behaviour (MIND2);
4. Reductionism / identity theory: mental states are certain
brain states (MIND3);
5. Eliminativism: there’s no mind (MIND3&4);
6. Functionalism: mental states are realized by brain states
(MIND4);
,7. Connectionism: mental states are states in a neural
network (MIND5);
8. Embodied & Embedded (& even Extended) mind: there’s
more to mind than brain (MIND6);
9. Epiphenomenalism: the mind has no causal powers
(MIND7).
Chapter 2
Michel Eyquem de Montaige
separability thesis: min can exist and function separately from the physical world
Skeptics argue that we can never be certain about anything
Montagine did not claim anything at all
inseparability thesis: idea that the mind cannot function separately from the physical body
1.Substance dualism
Can the mind function separately from the brain?
Descartes is thinking thing and physical thing (two substances)
[1] Res cogitans (the thinking substance);
[2] Res extensa (the physical or extended substance);
Substance: that which can exist on its own;
Substance-dualism: there are two substances, which don’t need each other for their existing
Physical bodies are moved by another physical body bumping into them/pushing them
1.Descartes' first method: Radical doubt
-If you doubt, you think. And if you think, you have to exist. (I am, I exist)
-I think therefore I am (cogito ergo sum)
➔ Q: What if there is a malin genie? A: Cogito ergo sum.
2.Descartes’ second method: Clear & distinct insights
➔ God exists; God is good; Hence, God does not deceive me (at least not all the time); So: I also am
a body; I am also a res extensa / a physical substance; Essential property: it is extended.
The interaction problem
I.e. every physical event has a physical cause;
So nonphysical (mental) causes seem to be unintelligible;
But then we have a “Patrick Swayze Problem” (dub as interaction problem)
Two solutions:
Descartes corresponded with princess Elizabeth of Bohemia;
She asked him the following: “How can the soul of man, being only a thinking substance, determine [i.e.
causally interact with] his bodily spirits to perform voluntary actions?”
(HD: Spirits are not ghosts, but are physical particles in the nerves and blood vessels.)
Descartes does not know;
On the one hand (so Descartes says) we are [a] clearly two substances;
On the other hand, we are not like a sailor on a ship, [b] but mind and body are closely connected;
We cannot think [a] and [b] together.
Mind and brain are connected in the pineal gland (soul has the power to move the body) according to
Descartes.
, Suggestion by Descartes: God takes care of the interaction: He could have made us in a way that
stepping in a nail would not result in pain, but in the taste of chocolate.
HD: How? Still a mystery
Occasionalism
Only God is the true cause of things in the world;
➔ My thought is the occasion for God to raise my arm.
Parallelism
If we have two clocks that run in sync, that is because they have been made that way;
➔ The same applies to the mind and the body. It depend on the same supreme designer (God)
Both occasionalism and parallelism suffer from the same problem: How does God do this?
- One problem cannot replace by another!
➔ Believe in rather in soul as in god
➔ Our common sense concept of a soul is conceptually incoherent
Parapsychology= reason to prove that SD is correct
- Accept that parapsychological phenomenon exists
1. clairvoyance (support the separability thesis)
-> ability to gain info about a person without using the normal senses
-> claim to gain knowledge from spirit world
2. Electronic voice phenomena
-> contact with dead people via radio, television
Cons:
----no way that clear that the cause of white noise is supernatural
----no clear recordings
----pareidolia: recognizing meaningful patterns in random stimuli
----theory ladenness: what we perceive is influenced by a theory that tells us what to perceive
Conclusion
If SD would be right, we would not understand how mind & body interact; (mystery)
But separability thesis could be correct
It is clear that dualism is conceptually incoherent.
Scientific investigation
Scientific investigations have never provided us with data supporting dualism;
SD takes the mind seriously, but not science!!!!
➔ Dualists have a strategy: If phenomenon X gets debunked, they provide something else:
clairvoyance
Workgroup 1
Dualist many times try to reverse the burden of proof (“show me he is not a medium,” “show me god
does not exist”);
Dualists often see that one case study fails to provide the evidence needed, and try to find this in
another case study;
We cannot ‘debunk’ them all, but there is enough material if you are interested.
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