Panpsychism As a Solution to the Mind-Body Problem
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Dualism Vs. Materialism: a Response to Paul Churchland
Dualism vs. Materialism: A Response to Paul Churchland by M. D. Robertson Paul M. Churchland, in his book, Matter and Consciousness, provides a survey of the issues and positions associated with the mind-body problem. This problem has many facets, and Churchland addresses several of them, including the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and methodological aspects of the debate. Churchland, of course, has very strong views on the subject, and does not hide his biases on the matter. In this paper I shall reexamine the metaphysical aspect of the mind-body problem. The metaphysical question concerns the existential status of the mind and the body, and the nature of the relationship between them. Like Churchland, I shall not hide my biases on the matter. What follows may be thought of as a rewriting of the second chapter of Churchland's book ("The Ontological Issue") from a non-naturalistic perspective. Substance Dualism René Descartes argued that the defining characteristic of minds was cogitation in a broad 2 sense, while that of bodies was spatial extension. Descartes also claimed that minds were not spatially extended, nor did bodies as such think. Thus minds and bodies were separate substances. This view has come to be called substance dualism. Descartes's argument for substance dualism can be summarized as follows: (1) Minds exist. (2) Bodies exist. (3) The defining feature of minds is cogitation. (4) The defining feature of bodies is extension. (5) That which cogitates is not extended. (6) That which is extended does not cogitate. Therefore, (7) Minds are not bodies, and bodies are not minds. -
From Locke to Berkeley
From Locke to Berkeley How Berkeley rejects Locke’s Metaphysical Realism in favor of what he calls “Idealism” Locke Summary Like Descartes, Locke believes that we perceive the “real” world only indirectly. • We do not directly perceive material objects, – Just as we do not directly perceive people we see on T.V.; • Rather, we directly perceive only ideas (sensations, things “in” our minds) that are caused by and represent material objects, – Just as, when watching T.V., we directly see only images on the screen. Locke’s Causal Theory of Perception: Indirectly Sensation aware of Matter Do our sensations resemble their objects? • Recall that Descartes’ big worry was whether or not there were any objects outside our minds. – (By the end of the 6th Meditation, he assures that there are.) • But he said we also make mistakes in thinking that our ideas always resembled the objects in the real world that caused us to have those sensations. Why should we believe that the ideas in our minds actually resemble the objects outside our minds that cause them? Mind’s Eye Idea Object Idea Object Mind In Locke’s Terms • Even if we accept that the ideas in our mind are caused by real objects that exist outside our minds – (Locke never really questions this) • Is it true that our ideas always resemble the qualities in the objects that caused us to have those ideas? Locke’s Answer • Only sometimes. Some of our ideas do resemble qualities in the objects, but some of them do not. • Our ideas of primary qualities resemble those qualities. -
What Is Wrong with the No-Report Paradigm and How to Fix It Ned Block New York University Correspondence: [email protected]
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilPapers Forthcoming in Trends in Cognitive Sciences What is wrong with the no-report paradigm and how to fix it Ned Block New York University Correspondence: [email protected] Key words: consciousness, perception, rivalry, frontal, global workspace, higher order Abstract Is consciousness based in prefrontal circuits involved in cognitive processes like thought, reasoning, and memory or, alternatively, is it based in sensory areas in the back of the neocortex? The no-report paradigm has been crucial to this debate because it aims to separate the neural basis of the cognitive processes underlying post-perceptual decision and report from the neural basis of conscious perception itself. However, the no-report paradigm is problematic because, even in the absence of report, subjects might engage in post-perceptual cognitive processing. Therefore, to isolate the neural basis of consciousness, a no-cognition paradigm is needed. Here, I describe a no-cognition approach to binocular rivalry and outline how this approach can help resolve debates about the neural basis of consciousness. Acknowledgement: Thanks to Jan Brascamp, Susan Carey, Thomas Carlson, David Carmel, David Chalmers, Christof Koch, Hakwan Lau, Matthias Michel, Michael Pitts, Dawid Potgieter and Giulio Tononi for comments on an earlier version. What is the Neural Basis of Consciousness? In recent years the scientific study of consciousness (see Glossary) has focused on finding the neural basis of consciousness in the brain. There are many theories of the neural basis of consciousness, but in broad strokes theories tend to divide on whether consciousness is rooted in the ‘front’ or the ‘back’ of the brain. -
24.00 Recitation Handout 6A: a Brief Review of Materialist Theories Of
Problems of Philosophy Handout #6 A Brief Review of Materialist Theories of Mind The question these theories are trying to answer is what the mind is, what consciousness consists of, what experiences are (for example, what the experience of seeing red is, or the experience of being in pain is), and what beliefs and desires are. In sum, they are trying to give an analysis of mental states (where a mental state can be an experience, a belief, a desire, etc…). I. Non Materialist Theories of The Mind 1. Dualism: the view that (at least some) mental states are not physical states. Problems: (a) dualism is inconsistent with physicalism – the view that everything that there is, is physical, which many people are sympathetic to. (b) Even if you’re not a physicalist, a lot of people think that the physical world is causally closed – that is, that every physical state can be explained fully by appeal to other physical events. But, it seems as if mental states are the sorts of things that cause physical states (for example, my desire to eat ice cream causes me to eat ice cream). Unless we give up on the claim that our mental states can cause physical states (as Jackson does), it looks like we have to give up on causal closure of the physical world. II. Materialist Theories of the Mind Some general issues with materliaism: the Mary argument (also called “the knowledge argument – it looks like maybe you can know all the physical facts without knowing facts about what it’s like to see red), subjectivity (facts about our mental life seem to essentially involve a subjective or first person point of view; facts about physics seem to essentially involve an objective or third person point of view). -
Consciousness, Philosophical Issues About Ned Block New York University I
To appear in The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science Consciousness, Philosophical Issues about Ned Block New York University I. The Hard Problem There are a number of different matters that come under the heading of ‘consciousness’. One of them is phenomenality, the feeling of say a sensation of red or a pain, that is what it is like to have such a sensation or other experience. Another is reflection on phenomenality. Imagine two infants, both of which have pain, but only one of which has a thought about that pain. Both would have phenomenal states, but only the latter would have a state of reflexive consciousness. This entry will start with phenomenality, moving later to reflexivity and then to one other kind of consciousness. The Hard Problem of consciousness is how to explain a state of consciousness in terms of its neurological basis. If neural state N is the neural basis of the sensation of red, why is N the basis of that experience rather than some other experience or none at all? Chalmers (1996) distinguishes between the Hard Problem and “easy” problems that concern the function of consciousness. The Hard Problem (though not under that name) was identified by Nagel (1974) and further analyzed in Levine (1983). There are two reasons for thinking that the Hard Problem has no solution. 1. Actual Failure. In fact, no one has been able to think of even a highly speculative answer. 2. Principled Failure. The materials we have available seem ill suited to providing an answer. As Nagel says, an answer to this question would seem to require an objective account that necessarily leaves out the subjectivity of what it is trying to explain. -
Descartes' Arguments for Distinguishing Mind and Body
© Michael Lacewing Descartes’ arguments for distinguishing mind and body THE KNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT In Meditation II, having argued that he knows he thinks, Descartes then asks what kind of thing he is. Discussions of identity seek to establish the essential properties of something, what makes it the thing that it is. The question ‘what am I?’ can be answered by considering the question of what it is for me to exist. Descartes is trying to identify his essence, those properties which, if he lost them, would mean he was no longer what he is. (An island, for instance, must be surrounded by water. If the water dried up, joining it to the mainland, it would cease to be an island.) He remarks that he can continue to doubt whether he has a body; after all, he only believes he has a body as a result of his perceptual experiences, and so the demon could be deceiving him about this. But he cannot doubt that he has a mind, i.e. that he thinks. So he knows he exists even though he doesn’t know whether or not he has a body. From this Descartes concludes that it is possible for him to exist without a body. He is essentially a mind, not a body. He would not necessarily cease to be himself if he ceased to have a body, but he would necessarily cease to be himself if he didn’t have a mind. APPEAL TO GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE Descartes’ argument so far is that minds can exist without bodies. However, on its own, it doesn’t establish dualism. -
Transparency of Mind: the Contributions of Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley to the Genesis of the Modern Subject
Transparency of Mind: The Contributions of Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley to the Genesis of the Modern Subject Gary Hat! eld Philosophers often use classical positions as paradigms for de! ning their own views, usually in contrast. In the philosophy of mind, the notion of the Cartesian subject is one such paradigm. This notion is often used to represent tendencies in the conception of the subject that today’s philosophers wish to avoid. John McDowell and Hilary Putnam 1, among others, portray the Cartesian subject – and speci! cally the Cartesian mind – as a step backward from an earlier, preferable Aristotelianism, whose concept of mind might be made serviceable today if adjusted to ! t modern science. Such paradigms, whose use is unavoidable, are typically caricatures, whether slight or gross. The Cartesian mind as standardly portrayed by McDowell, Putnam, and oth- ers 2 is a gross caricature. This would be important enough for its potential to mislead us about the actual historical development of philosophy. But even more crucially for the philosophy of mind, the use of a caricatured picture as a counterparadigm against which one de! nes one’s own, comparatively better position, can lead to a pyrrhic vic- tory that avoids or misrepresents the real problems. If the opponent has been tailored to one’s desired virtues as conquering hero, one may give the impression that one’s own position solves great problems, deeply embedded in the tradition, when in fact one has simply rejected a fairly recent problematic position, which one has perhaps also misun- derstood and misidenti! ed. 3 The Cartesian mental paradigm is frequently de! ned in terms of four factors: con- sciousness as essence, intentionality as exclusively mental, the veil of perception, and the transparency of mind. -
The Mystery of David Chalmers
Daniel C. Dennett The Mystery of David Chalmers 1. Sounding the Alarm ‘The Singularity’ is a remarkable text, in ways that many readers may not appreciate. It is written in an admirably forthright and clear style, and is beautifully organized, gradually introducing its readers to the issues, sorting them carefully, dealing with them all fairly and with impressive scholarship, and presenting the whole as an exercise of sweet reasonableness, which in fact it is. But it is also a mystery story of sorts, a cunningly devised intellectual trap, a baffling puzzle that yields its solution — if that is what it is (and that is part of the mystery) — only at the very end. It is like a ‘well made play’ in which every word by every character counts, retrospectively, for something. Agatha Christie never concocted a tighter funnel of implications and suggestions. Bravo, Dave. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2013 So what is going on in this essay? It purports to be about the pros- pects of the Singularity, and since I can count on readers of my essay For personal use only -- not for reproduction to have read Chalmers, I needn’t waste so much as a sentence on what that is or might be. See Chalmers (2010). I confess that I was initially repelled by the prospect of writing a commentary on this essay since I have heretofore viewed the Singularity as a dismal topic, involving reflections on a technological fantasy so far removed from actuality as to be an indulgence best resisted. Life is short, and there are many serious problems to think about. -
Richard Swinburne's Arguments for Substance Dualism
Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013). -
Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology
MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, X (1986) Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology NED BLOCK eaning is notoriously vague. So, it should not be surprising that se- Mmanticists (those who study meaning) have had somewhat different purposes in mind, and thus have sharpened the ordinary concept of meaning in somewhat different ways. It is a curious and unfortunate fact that semanti- cists typically tell us little about what aspects of meaning they are and are not attempting to deal with. One is given little guidance as to what extent “rival” research programs actually disagree. My purpose here is to advocate an approach to semantics relevant to the foundations of psychology, or, rather, one approach to one branch of psychology, namely cognitive science. I shall be tallung in terms of some of the leading ideas of cognitive science, most importantly the representational theory of mind, aspects of which will be sketched as they become relevant.’ The representalist doctrine that my argument depends on is that thoughts are structured entities. I know this will be a sticking point for some readers, so I will say a bit more about what this comes to, and I will compare my position with related positions that reject it. My strategy will be to begin with some desiderata. These desiderata vary along many dimensions: how central they are to meaning, how psycho- logically oriented they are, how controversial they are. I will argue that one approach to semantics (not to keep you in suspense-conceptual role seman- tics) promises to handle such desiderata better than the others that I know about. -
General MT09 4 Scepticism M
GeneralGeneral PhilosophyPhilosophy DrDr PeterPeter MillicanMillican,, HertfordHertford CollegeCollege LectureLecture 4:4: TwoTwo CartesianCartesian TopicsTopics Scepticism,Scepticism, andand thethe MindMind LastLast TimeTime …… … we looked at scepticism about INDUCTION. ThisThis LectureLecture …… … will move on to SCEPTICISM concerning the external world, most famously exemplified in Descartes’ first Meditation, and his related claims about the nature of MIND AND BODY. TheThe NextNext LectureLecture …… … will say more about modern responses to SCEPTICISM, and focus on KNOWLEDGE. 2 TwoTwo KindsKinds ofof ScepticismScepticism VerticalVertical ScepticismScepticism – Inferring from one kind of thing to a different kind (e.g. inferring from one’s sensations or appearances, to the existence of real physical objects that cause them). HorizontalHorizontal ScepticismScepticism – Inferring things of the same kind as one has experienced (e.g. inferring from one’s sensations or appearances, to expect similar sensations or appearances in the future). 3 ExternalExternal WorldWorld ScepticismScepticism ItIt cancan seemseem thatthat ((““verticalvertical””)) externalexternal worldworld scepticismscepticism isis farfar moremore worryingworrying thanthan ((““horizontalhorizontal””)) inductiveinductive scepticism:scepticism: – Maybe I am just dreaming, and there is no external world at all. – Maybe an evil demon is causing me to have illusions of an external world. – Maybe a wicked scientist has my brain in a vat, and is creating these illusions. 4 DescartesDescartes’’ -
Eidos Fecha De Recepción: Marzo 3 De 2011 ISSN 1692-8857 Fecha De Aceptación: Julio 28 De 2011 Issne 2011-7477
eidos Fecha de recepción: marzo 3 de 2011 ISSN 1692-8857 Fecha de aceptación: julio 28 de 2011 ISSNe 2011-7477 IS THE PANPSYCHIST BETTER OFF AS AN IDEALIST? SOME LEIBNIZIAN REMARKS ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMPOSITION Michael Blamauer University of Vienna, Department of Philosophy [email protected] RESUMEN Algunos filósofos de la mente han defendido la idea de considerar la mente como otra característica fundamental de la realidad, además de las propiedades físicas. De ahí que la mayoría de ellos sean propiamente dualistas. Sin embargo, algunos de ellos son pansiquistas. En este artículo sostendré que ser propiamente un dualista implica, en esencia, ser pansiqui- sta. Incluso, si el pansiquismo aborda ciertas dificultades relacionadas con el problema de la conciencia de manera muy elegante, éstas permanecen inmodificables. Siendo partidario del carácter fundamental de la mente, de- fenderé la idea de que sólo mediante una revisión radical de la metafísica el pansiquista podrá evitar tales problemas y, en consecuencia, que debe adoptar el idealismo leibniciano. PALABRAS CLAVE Panpsiquismo, Leibniz, filosofía de la mente, dualismo, composición. ABSTRACT Some philosophers of mind have argued for considering consciousness as a further fundamental feature of reality in addition to its physical prop- erties. Hence most of them are property dualists. But some of them are panpsychists. In the present paper it will be argued that being a real prop- erty dualist essentially entails being a panpsychist. Even if panpsychism deals rather elegantly with certain problems of the puzzle of consciousness, there’s no way around the composition problem. Adhering to the funda- mentality claim of the mind, it will be shown that only a radical revision of metaphysics will allow the panpsychist to avoid these troubles, and hence that a panpsychist must adopt Leibnizian idealism.