CONSCIOUSNESS

Question 1

DESCARTES epistemology: the PROBLEM

Answer 1

• can we know anything with certainty?
• everything can be called into doubt

Question 2

descartes method to solve his problem

Answer 2

-hyperbolic doubt
* finds a belief where there is no doubt
* concludes there are fundamental truths we can know with certainty

Question 3

what are his solutions

Answer 3

• doubting senses
• the reliability of the senses and dreaming
• what if there were a decietful demon at every corner

Question 4

why does he think there needs a bridge between the mind and world

Answer 4

• our ideas can misrepresent the world through our perception

Question 5

cogito ergo sum

Answer 5

i think, therefore i am
- a foundational truth, we are thinking things

Question 6

what are descartes 2 kinds of substance

Answer 6

-extended- bodies and material things that take up space
-un0extended things- the mind and thinking

Question 7

what are the 2 types of mind body distinctions

Answer 7

real: reflects a difference between mind and body
conceptual: reflects a difference in only thinking

Question 8

his premises for the mind body distinction

Answer 8

• My essence consists only in a thinking thing, unextended
• My body is extended
• Therefore, my mind and body are distinct
  It is conceivable and then possible, my mind can exist without my body

Question 9

mind body interaction solutions

2 of them

Answer 9

• causation: interactionism
• mere correlation: parallelism

Question 10

WEAK AI

Answer 10

computer models can be useful for studying the mind

Question 11

strong AI

Answer 11

thinking is the manipulation of formal symbols
-the mind is to the brain as the program is to the hardware, no understanding

Question 12

hard problem of consciousness, how do we account for it

Answer 12

• How do physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience?

How do we account for this? The explanatory gap

Question 13

reductionism

Answer 13

*a complex system is only the sum of its parts
* leaves out the first person perspective

Question 14

anti reductionism

Answer 14

• complex things will never be understood

Question 15

physicalism

Answer 15

-mental events are physical events
-mental states are physical states of the body

Question 16

the mind-body identity theory

Answer 16

• strongest reductionist theory
• type-type identity
  *

Question 17

type-type identity

Answer 17

• Every mental event of type X is identical with a brain state type Y
• Being in pain, this mental event is identical to a certain brain state
• Tight correlation between mental and brain states
• Conclude they are identical
• Reduction in the strict sense, mental states are eliminated

Question 18

easy problem of consciousness

Answer 18

-How does the brain utilize information to control behaviour
-How can humans verbalize their internal states
-These questions concern objective mechanisms of the cognitive

Question 19

Phenomological

Answer 19

• To experience something under subjective experience

Question 20

the master argument

against reductionism

Answer 20

• piece by piece of each theory and review each one
• Point out one aspect of all pieces to deny, a problem for reductionism itself

Is physicalism false?

Question 21

explanatory gap problem

Answer 21

• The problem is, it is possible that these cognitive functions occur without any accompanying consciousness

Question 22

Qualia

Answer 22

• internal subjective components of sense perceptions, what it is like to see or experience the ‘blueness’ of blue or taste the tartness of a lemon