Dualism

Question 1

What is dualism?

Answer 1

The idea that a human being is a composite animal consisting of body and mind

Question 2

What is Descartes’ view on consciousness?

Answer 2

‘Res cogitans’: that we have a ‘thinking thing or substance’ which consists of no space, is not physical, and is only thought. He can doubt the existence of everything save consciousness.

Question 3

What is a crucial problem in the idea of dualism?

Answer 3

How the non- physical and physical interact

Question 4

What is intentionality and consciousness?

Answer 4

The idea that we have mental images, memories, perceptions, beliefs etc that:

• we can clearly and immediately be aware of
• we experience privately
• are clearly about something (intentionality)
• we have awareness of
• have non-physical properties

Question 5

What is the idea of Qualia?

Answer 5

That the essence of an experience cannot be explained in physical terms

Question 6

What is frank Jackson’s thought experiment that justifies qualia?

Answer 6

He describes a scientist that can know all the facts about the physicality of wine but can also learn something new when tasting it. There is something that the experience of wine that is not captured fully within its physicality.

Question 7

What are criticisms of the idea of Qualia and Frank Jackson’s thought experiments?

Answer 7

• it is the chemical reaction between enzymes in our mouth and the food which creates the new experience- this does not mean that it is not physical, it just distinguishes between knowledge and physical experience.
• animals also have the taste sensation, so do animals have consciousness?
• the thought experiment begins assuming the conclusion

Question 8

What is the idea of identity and soul that supports dualism?

Answer 8

• we have a continuous identity even though cells in the body are constantly changing
• the soul connects us to the past, is our identity

Question 9

What are criticisms of using identity as support for dualism?

Answer 9

• identity is a mental human concept that is applied to other humans as it is to imaginary ideas like Gods or legal myths, such as companies, with no same founder, workers or function constantly, but still has an identity.
• identity, or ideas of individuals are caused by environmental factors and are not purely continuous, they are merely the concepts that others have if you at a given time. Once you see dead you still have ‘identity’ in the memory of others and this dies with them
• brain dies not change over a lifetime like other body cells. It develops until 14 and after does not change, only loses cells. It makes sense for the physical brain therefore to be identity.

Question 10

What is the argument for life after death to support dualism?

Answer 10

The soul is what continues after the body decays. No soul = no afterlife. Therefore to have an afterlife, we much have a separate entity

Question 11

What is the criticism of an afterlife to support dualism?

Answer 11

It is a circular argument. It assumes that we have a soul to prove an after life, considering this to be a fact

Question 12

What is the argument of freewill to support dualism?

Answer 12

If humans are entirely physical, they must be governed by physical laws. Therefore, to have free will, there must be a separate mind.

Question 13

What is a criticism of the idea of free will in support of dualism?

Answer 13

It is a circular argument, presuming free will exists to prove the mind

Question 14

What is the idea of language against dualism?

Answer 14

We only see the mind as a separate substance because of the way that we talk about it. As Wittgenstein says “language has bewitched our understanding”. We should use the term ‘brain activity’ instead of ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’. Brain activity would then be like digestion, which can’t exist without the stomach.

• ‘I have two legs’- implication of separation
• words our usually derived from our need to name something within our understanding of their context, so why would we create a word like ‘consciousness’ without any understanding of context to place it in

Question 15

What does John Dennet say against dualism?

Answer 15

“Accepting dualism is giving up”- we should be open so scientific possibility

Question 16

How is identity explained to be associated with the brain?

Answer 16

The configuration of neural synapses and their electrical wiring and interconnection and release of chemicals is all there is to thoughts and feelings. Localisation is where different mental events take place in different parts of the brain, for example there is a different part shown to be active in kantian and utilitarian ethical thought.

Question 17

What is a criticism against physical brain identity?

Answer 17

Descartes stresses that correlation does not m an identity. Brain activities may accompany consciousness but are not consciousness in itself

Question 18

What is functionalism?

Answer 18

The idea that a mental state is a matter of what it does, not what it is made of.

• pain in humans is a C-fibre activity, but other species feel pain and don’t have these- if any species is shown to experience physical damage and reacts, they can be said to have pain…this includes robots
• brains are the hardware and the mind is the software
• a machine of any material could in principal have the same mental life of a human, if it’s system could fulfil the functions of a brain

Question 19

What are arguments against functionalism?

Answer 19

• processes going on inside a robot are very different to ours
• Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment- the person inside a room with two slots either side is fed Chinese words and doesn’t understand them, but had a book of rules and gives responses out the other side- impression of understanding but no actual thought process

Question 20

What is epiphenomenalism?

Answer 20

A compromise between materialism and dualism. It states there is interaction between mind and body, however only one way- the physical affects the mental. We have thoughts and feelings but these have no effect. They are superfluous to the process of causation.