Mind body problem
18 important questions on Mind body problem
What are the three main views on the mind body problem?
- Dualism; the mind (or the soul) is something independent of the body.
- materialism; the mind is nothing but a by-product of the biological processes taking place in a particular brain.
- functionalism; the mind is indeed realised in a brain, but that it could be copied to any other brain, just like information on a computer can be copied to other machines.
How do we call the private, first-person experiences an individual lives through; contains all the mental states a person is aware of; part of the mind that can be examined with introspection?
How did descartes fired of the mind body problem is the mind was seen as spiritual beforehand?
- The view of the mind was that it was spiritual back in the day.
- but back then the body was seen as spiritual as well.
- the reason descartes made the mind body problem was because he kept that vision but started to see the body as a machine.
- due to research being done on the body (nerves, reflexes, etc,) the view on the body changed.
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What are the main problems proposed to dualism?
- The interaction problem; How can a nonmaterial entity cause physical events?
- cause closure problem; If every physical event has a physical cause, where does the mind enter? How about the law of conservation of energy (mind adds energy from thin air, being immaterial and such)?
- brain damage problem; Why would a nonmaterial entity react to brain damage?
What is in essence the viewpoint of a materialist, and what is it not necessarily?
- the mind, whatever it may be, is a part of nature and observes the laws of nature
- so, there is only matter the concept of “matter ” is however quite flexible (so fields, states, processes, functions, etc. all count as “material”)
- so what the mind is exactly is still up to debate.
Describe eliminative materialism
- This viewpoint denies mental states from existing
- mental states are explanations of folk psychology; they're used by us to describe our behavior but this is not correct. Mental states are a thing we made up.
- the real explanations for behavior will come from neuroscience.
- behavior can be explained purely through neurochemical explanations
What are some problems for eliminative materialism?
- Mental states seem too important for explaining behavior to simply dismiss them
- It is also unclear what should take the place of ordinary “belief-desire” explanations of behavior – neuroscience that can do this is currently science fiction
Who are the most famous eliminative materialists?
Describe the type-type identity theory
- types of mental states (“wanting an ice cream”) are identical to types of brain states (brain state X) across individuals and time points
- This implies a one-to-one mapping of mental states to brain states
- If this holds true, then a full reduction of psychology to neuroscience is a realistic possibility
Why doesn't a materialist have to be a reductionist?
- A materialist simply thinks that the mind obeys the laws of nature
- a reductionist thinks we can reduce the content of psychology to the contents of neuroscience
How does a reduction go?
- Start with a scientific law in the higher order science (the science to be reduced, e.g., psychology) 'time pressure causes a decrease in performance on memory tasks
- establish bridge laws: one-to-one correspondence relations between terms in the higher order science and terms in the lower order science (the reducing science, e.g. neuroscience) 'time pressure comes down to this and this, and memory performance depends on this and that
- Show that the higher order law follows from the laws of the reducing science given the bridge laws
this explains the higher phenomena by the lower law
What are some criticisms on the type-type identity theory?
- Neural plasticity; after brain damage knowledge can be relearned. This implies that the same mental functions can be performed in different ways.
- individual differences in physical makeup suggest that brains may be quite heterogeneous, especially at the fine grained level of patterns of neural connections
- mental states are defined by the content. Due to the variety of contents a mental state can have it is unlikely that mental states are coded in the same way.
Describe the computer analogy and the functionalistic aspects of it
- The body relates to the mind like hardware relates to software
- in a computer; different hardware can produce the same result with the same software
- so while the hardware isn't the same and the software can be slightly different, the function it provides and the result it gets are the same
- Just like the variables in a computer program, mental states are characterized by their function, not their realization
Describe functionalism through fear of spiders
- Functionalism defines mental states in terms of their role
- For instance: realizing input-output relations
- “Fear of spiders = whatever state causes people to avoid spiders, to say they are afraid of spiders, etc.”
- In this view, fear of spiders is not caused by the brain, but realized in the brain
Describe multiple realization and causation of functionalism through money and word.
- To understand an economic crisis you don't have to know what money is made of and how it is made, you just have to know the function of money and how it is transferred
- to understand how to use word you don't have to understand every chip in you computer or the code that programmed word, you just have to know what button produces what effect.
Describe token-token identify theory
- Type type identity is impossible due to multiple realization of mental states
- But... what if ‘to want an ice cream’=‘brain state x for John’, ‘brain state y for Jane’, brain state z for Jerry’, etc...
- then brain states are mental states but they are not the same between people and over time
How does toke identity block reductionism?
- If brain states are not identical between people and over time we can't construct bridge laws.
- Just like the concept of the ten euro bill does not map to one specific physical kind of thing but multiple
- thus the laws of psychology cannot be reduced to the laws of biology or physics
How do we call the proposition that one mental
state can be realized in multiple and very different ways?
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