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Place1924 - 2000
• Identity Theory• Correlation: Causation vs. Identity• Token vs. Type Identity• Phenomenological Fallacy• Empirical Hypothesis• Contingent Identity
The Legacy of Descartes’ Dualism
• The Mind is a Mystery• A Ghost in a Machine• The Genie in the Lantern
Identity TheoryMinds are BrainsMental=Physical
Mental States=Physical StatesMental Events=Physical Events
Mental Properties=Physical Properties???
Occam’s Razor
• William of Ockham (1287-1347)
• A principle of parsimony and economy
• ‘Shave’ any unnecessary assumptions
• Don’t multiply entities beyond necessity
• Newton (1642-1727) “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearance.”
• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.”
Correlation
Physical Event/State Mental Event/StateEither C or A Delta fibers firing Experience of Painl• Correlation between events/states in the brain & x’s reports of x’s
mental state, event or experience• Given this correlation• Possibility 1: causal: c fibers cause the exp. of pain• Possibility 2: identity: c fibers=pain [this is a much stronger claim]
Clouds & Lightning
Cloud = mass of tiny particles/condensed frozen crystals
Lightning = Motion of Electric Charges
Empirical: something we discovered via observation
Contingent Fact: it could have been otherwise
Clouds could have been something else
Lightening could have been something else
Mind could have been something else (i.e. not the brain)
Neural Processes/States/Events = Conscious Processes/States/Events
Pain=C Fibers Firing Love=Love Cocktail: Oxytocin+Dopamine+Norepinephrine
Color=Ratio between signals from different types of cones
Phenomenological Fallacy
The experience itself the conscious experience
If Ms are Ps, doesn’t it then follow that every property of an M must be a property of a P (and vice versa)?
• Does it follow from the fact that x=y is an empirical [a posteriori] discovery that we make, that that identity is then contingent?
Contingent Identity?
• In what sense is it possible that Hesperus could have turned out not to be Phosphorus?
Contingent Identity?
In what sense is it possible that Heisenberg could have turned out not to be Walter White?
In what sense is it possible that Walter White could have turned out not to be Heisenberg?
Empirical HypothesisNot one of Meaning: Not claiming that talk of thoughts/pains can be translated into talk of brains
The Autistic Neurophysicist
• Metaphysics/Epistemology: facts are one thing, knowledge of facts another
• Even if “brain” and “mind” are not synonymous, if brain=mind, the fact that “brain” and “mind” are not synonymous, doesn’t make it the case that it could have turned out that brain doesn’t = mind