Consciousness

Question 1

How does Aristotle (384-322 BC) define temperature?

Answer 1

According to Aristotle, temperature is a mixing of hot and cold qualities.

Question 2

What are Nagel’s comments on the philosophical theory of reductionism?

Answer 2

1) Reductionism denies the mind-body problem (mental activity = brain activity) and does not believe the mental is subjective. Nagel strongly disagrees. Emphasises the subjective nature of experience, point of view-dependent, unique. 3) In other areas the process of reduction aims at reaching more objectivity. However, there is general difficulty with mental reduction. How would you understand what it is like to be a bat if you removed the viewpoint of a bat? How do you study consciousness in objective terms when it is subjective and point of view-dependent. 4) Reductionists do not take consciousness into account. No explanations of consciousness. Even no attempts to do so. 5) Little physical evidence to show that a system of reactions in the brain produces consciousness and it cannot explain why we have subjectively different experiences and thoughts.

Question 3

How does Thomas Nagel define consciousness?

Answer 3

An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism - something it is like for the organism, i.e. subjective character of experience. This subjective character of experience cannot be explained by physical phenomena. Consciousness occurs at many levels of animal life.

Question 4

What are mental processes according to the reductionist theory?

Answer 4

According to the reductionist theory, mental processes are the sum of chemical and physical reactions in the brain. Thus, consciousness is not subjective but a product of other biological events.

Question 5

What is reductionism?

Answer 5

Reductionism believes that all phenomena can be explained by simpler phenomena. All things and events are produced by smaller things and events in a cause-and-effect relationship.

Question 6

How does Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) define heat?

Answer 6

According to Galilei, heat is the absence of cold.

Question 7

Who built the first thermometers?

Answer 7

Ole Rømer (1644-1710) and Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1732). They defined temperature as the degree of heat.

Question 8

What is the definition of heat and temperature in physics today?

Answer 8

Heat is energy transfer.Temperature is related to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules.

Question 9

What does the example with temperature and heat illustrate?

Answer 9

Reduction from temperature to average kinetic energy. Many different definitions of temperature and heat have been presented throughout the centuries: - BC: Aristotle “Temperature is a mixing of hot and cold qualities”.- 16th century Galileo Galilei “Heat is the absence of cold”.- 17th century Ole Rømer and Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and the first thermometers. “Temperature is the degree of heat”. However, in the end the two concepts, temperature and heat, have somehow been disentangled and have been reduced to another concept that is well-known and well-understood, namely energy. Heat is energy transfer.Temperature is related to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules.

Question 10

Who is Thomas Nagel?

Answer 10

American philosopherBorn in 1937 (84 years old)Published the paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat” in 1974.The most widely cited and influential thought experiment about consciousness.

Question 11

What is the overall theme of the thought experiment “What Is It Like to Be a Bat” (1974) by Thomas Nagel?

Answer 11

Consciousness

The mind-body problem, i.e. whether or not the mind (thoughts and consciousness) is distinct from the physiological processes of the body.

Question 12

What is the current default position?

Answer 12

Monism: one kind of substance.Materialism: … and that substance is matter (Descartes’ res extensa).

Question 13

What is the metaphor of the bat in Nagel’s thought experiment?

Answer 13

A way to illustrate the problem with consciousness. Humans know objective facts about bats and their brains. BUT humans can never truly know the conscious experience of a life as a bat or any other animal because we are restricted by our own experience and imagination. Even though we are not able to describe the conscious experience of being a bat, it does not mean that bats do not have subjective experiences fully comparable in richness of detail to our own.

Question 14

What is the problem of consciousness according to Nagel?

Answer 14

It is possible to imagine someone else’s thoughts / experiences by assuming their point of view.BUT it is impossible to understand and know the subjective conscious experience of others, their thoughts and experiences because you need a specific point of view that you do not have access to, e.g. you cannot imagine what it is like to be deaf or blind.

Question 15

According to Nagel, what does the gap between subjectivity and objectivity imply?

Answer 15

Objective facts about a bat: Facts about brains and behaviour of bats. Imagine what it is like to be a bat. Conception about them feeling pain, hunger, fear, lust. General understanding of echolocation.Subjective experience of a bat: The bat’s experience of being hungry, feeling pain, being afraid is subjective. Humans do not possess the ability to use echolocation. Cannot imagine what it is like.Conclusion: We can never truly know the conscious experience of a life as a bat because we are restricted by our own experience and imagination, i.e. limitation of human imagination. It is difficult to examine consciousness in an objective, physical way because it is subjective and bound to a single point of view.

Question 16

Who is Daniel C. Dennett?

Answer 16

• Born in 1942 (age 80)- American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology.- Criticised Thomas Nagel’s article “What is it like to be a bat?” in his comment article “What is it like for there to be something it is like to something?”. - Published “What it is like to be a Bat” at the New York University Philosophy Department in April 1991.

Question 17

How come you cannot reduce mind to brain activity when you are able to reduce temperature to kinetic energy.

Answer 17

The mind is point-of-view dependent, and temperature is not. Reducing the mind to the brain removes the essential subjective character of conscious experience and therefore it is not possible.

Question 18

What is solipsism?

Answer 18

Solipsism is the philosophical idea that the only thing you can be sure of it the existence of your own mind. Anything outside one’s own mind (i.e. external world, other minds) is unsure.

Question 19

What is the Doppler Effect?

Answer 19

A phenomenon that occurs whenever the source of sound waves is moving with respect to the observer. For example, when an ambulance with its siren on is moving towards you. The waves are shifted to a higher frequency and a shorter wavelength and this change in frequency and wavelength creates the Doppler effect.

Question 20

What is Churchland’s claim to mental reductionism?

Answer 20

Even though it is difficult to imagine reduction of a subjective phenomenon to an objective phenomenon, it does not necessarily mean that it is impossible.

Question 21

What does it mean that consciousness is just an epiphenomenon?

Answer 21

An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon.

In this case, the mind and it mental processes and functions are the primary phenomenon, and consciousness is a second phenomenon that occurs alongside. Consciousness is just a by-product of the mind, i.e. has no causal connection to the world.

Question 22

What are some claims about consciousness?

Answer 22

1. The value of subjective experience accounts for flexible, creative behaviour.2. The value of subjective experience accounts for internal drive and motivation.3. The experiencing subject should be at the heart of theories of consciousness but also of decision-making and emotions.

Question 23

What are the main objectives of the paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat” (1974) by Thomas Nagel?

Answer 23

• Explores the nature of consciousness, both for humans and animals.- Explores the limits of human imagination. - Challenges reductionism and objectivity.- Highlights the significance of subjectivity in conscious experience.

Question 24

How does reductionism look upon the mind-body problem?

Answer 24

Deny the gap between mind and body.Reduce mental processes to neural/chemical brain activity.

Question 25

Does Daniel C. Dennett believe we can imagine what it is like to be a bat?

Answer 25

YES! It is not impossible to imagine what it is like to be a bat. Research has made it possible to already answer many of the questions about bat neurophysiology, behaviour ecology and ethology.

Question 26

Nagel presents several facts about bats and echolocation. What does Daniel Dennett say about these facts?

Answer 26

In Nagel’s paper facts about bats and echolocation are enough to establish the hypothesis that bats are conscious and that their consciousness is very different from our own.

So these facts can tell us exactly how the consciousness of a bat is different from our own, and these differences can explain to us what it is like to be a bat.

Question 27

Daniel Dennett mentions the digestive system of bats. What is his point?

Answer 27

The structure of the bat’s mind is just as accessible as the structure of a bat’s digestive system.

A bat’s consciousness is accessible through objective, empirical observation.

Question 28

What does Daniel Dennett think of Nagel’s choice of a bat?

Answer 28

Clever move in choosing a bat as reference point.
Bats are mammals that are enough like us to support the fact that they are conscious (e.g. compared to a spider).
But they are also different enough from us to get his point that we are not able to know what it is like to be a bat (e.g. compared to a chimpanzee).
The facts about bats and their echolocation do not tell us anything about how a bat’s consciousness is different from ours. It only shows that they are conscious.

Question 29

Dennett criticises Nagel’s arguments. What does he say?

Answer 29

Thomas Nagel presents the claims as if they are obvious and do include any arguments in support of the result. He states that we are not able to understand what it is like to be a bat.

But why are we not able to understand the consciousness of a bat? Facts about bats and echolocation demonstrates that bats are conscious. Such facts are also able to us exactly in what ways the consciousness of a bat is different from our own consciousness.

Question 30

What is the example of Leipzig-Bach-hearers?

Answer 30

Leipzig Lutheran churchgoers in 1720s listening to J.S. Bach’s music.

Leipzig Lutheran churchgoers had a completely different conscious experience of listening to Bach’s music than we would have today.
The difference of consciousness of Leipzigers and ourselves is a matter of historical, cultural and psychological and (maybe) physiological investigation. It has nothing to do with biological differences.

Question 31

How would we be able to understand the conscious experience of Leipzigers listening to Bach’s music?

Answer 31

We would have to be able to forget what we already know, loose associations and habits, acquire new habits and associations. We would have to live in isolation from our culture.

However, that is foolish and unnecessary according to Dennett. Instead, we can use a third person perspective and list all the differences between the experience of being a Leipzig Lutheran churchgoer and our own experience, and we would have an understanding.

We know the differences between the two groups and therefore we know that it is impossible for us to relive the Leipzigers experiences.

Question 32

Dennett’s child play example disputes one of Nagel’s arguments? Which one?

Answer 32

Nagel claims that no amount of third-person knowledge could tell us what it is like to be a bat.

Dennett uses a child’s play to dispute the argument in which he uses objective, third-person facts about bats.

These facts emphasize that we actually do know a great deal about bat perception and behaviour. E.g. bats have designed a muscle that shuts down their ears when they produce their echoes.

Question 33

What is the exercise of heterophenomenology? And what is its relation to bat consciousness?

Answer 33

Heterophenomenology is the phenomenology of the other.

We should use the exercise of heterophenomenology (i.e. phenomenology of the other) to get closer to an understanding of the consciousness of a bat. Objective, third-person facts about the neurophysiology, behaviour and perceptions of bats. You arrive at a tentatively understanding of the experience of being a bat that you develop further when you know more about the physiology of a bat.

Question 34

Behaviourism and consciousness.

Answer 34

• Acknowledges that minds do exist.
• However, the study of the mind is irrelevant.
• Only behaviour should be studied and “mind-talk” should be translated into behaviour to be studied.
• Strategy: Translate mental words into behaviour.
• Problem: How do you operationalise conscious experience? How is consciousness manifested in behaviour?

Question 35

Computationalism and consciousness.

Answer 35

• Minds do exist!
• Implementation-independent: Minds can be implemented anywhere.
• Strategy: Marr’s three levels of analysis (i.e. computational theory, representation and algorithm and hardware implementation).
• Problem 1: Is conscious experience information processing? Why would there be something it is like to process information?
• Problem 2: How can we know when a computer has a conscious mind? And in such a case, how could we understand what it is like to be a conscious computer?

Question 36

Connectionism and consciousness.

Answer 36

• Minds do exist!
• Minds depend on brain-like structures.
• Strategy: Build brain-like networks that can simulate mindful behaviour.
• Problem: How and why would a brain-like model instantiate conscious experience?

Question 37

Embodiment and consciousness.

Answer 37

• Minds do exist!
• They are dependent on brain-like structures, which are constrained and regulated by the body.
• Strategy: Model the bodily constraints and regulators working on the organism to infer cognition that leads to behaviour.
• Problem: Explicitly including the body and its goals and engagement with the world may help ground symbols, but why should this be associated with conscious experience?

Question 38

What is the main point of Eliminative Materialism?

Answer 38

The mind does not exist. There are no mental states. No such things as beliefs and desires. Only physical things exists (brain, body). The mind is a concept based on folk psychology.

Question 39

What does to two components of eliminative materialism imply?

Answer 39

• Materialism: Mental processes (e.g. remembering, learning, hunger) are states of the physical brain itself. All concepts of the mind is something that the brain does.
• Eliminative: Some psychological categories do not fit very well onto the new research on the nature of the brain. These include mental states such as beliefs and desires. Such categories are eliminated, not from everyday speech, but from scientific speech. E.g. the concept of the will.

Question 40

What is folk psychology?

Answer 40

Explaining human behaviour based on beliefs, desires and motivations. Human behaviour is the result of some mental state. “I believe… I want… I think…”.

Question 41

Why does eliminative materialism criticise folk psychology?

Answer 41

Folk psychology has not evolved as a science, has not produced new findings. It is an outdated paradigm. Folk psychology in the form of weekly counselling and therapy in treating anxiety and depression is not very efficient compared to a neurological intervention.

Question 42

Who are two main characters of eliminative materialism?

Answer 42

Paul and Patricia Churchland

Focus on objective science of the mind, neuro science, measurements, tests.

Question 43

When does eliminative materialism encounter problems?

Answer 43

How can you deny a subjective experience (confused, angry, happy etc.)? How do they explain the subject of experience that feels very real? How do you justify that the experience of having a thought, a feeling, a belief is not real?

Question 44

According to eliminative materialism, why have physicalist theories not been able to explain mental states?

Answer 44

Because mental states do not exist!

Question 45

Is artificial intelligence possible according to eliminative materialism?

Answer 45

A conscious computer is possible. When a physical brain is able to produce consciousness, there is no reason to believe that computers can’t.