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Fundamentals p.2 > L1 - The mind-body problem > Flashcards

L1 - The mind-body problem Flashcards

1
Q

In this lecture:

A
  • mind-body problem
  • Dualism
  • Materialism
    > eliminative, reductive and non-reductive
  • Functionalism and multiple realizability
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2
Q

What is the Mind-Body problem?

A
  • the issue of how the mind and body relate to each other
    > also called mind-brain problem
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3
Q

What was Elisabeth’s opinion on the mind-body probem?

A

(picture 1)
- she already brings forward important themes:
> voluntary action (free will)
> problem of interaction between mind and body (interaction problem)
- she responds to Descartes

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4
Q

what are the different possible views on the debate?

A
  • monism (materialism vs idealism)
  • dualism (substance-dualism)
    (picture 2)
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5
Q

Monism
- what is it?
- what are its two contrasting ideas?

A

“there is only one kind of substance”
- Materialism
> “ultimately everything is material”
- Idealism
> “ultimately everything is mental”

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6
Q

What is Dualism?

A

“there are two kinds of substances”
! also called Cartesian Dualism

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7
Q

dualism and religion (+ demonology)

A
  • dualism is central to religions
  • demonologist view of psychology
    (mental disorders are due to possessions by evil spirits)
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8
Q

what is Substance-dualism?
- who started it?

A

“mind and body are kinds of distinct entities”
- Descartes
> he views the body (but not the mind) as a machine
> mind and body must be therefore different substances
(Plato also believed that the mind was separate, belonging to the cosmo-soul)

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9
Q

How are the two substances?
> what are their characteristics?

A
  • mental (mind, soul)
    > it thinks
    > does not extend in space
  • physical (body)
    > does not think
    > it is extended in space
    ! soul communicates to the body through pineal gland
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10
Q

What are the two main ideas related to dualism?

A
  • mind inhabitates our body (prevalent intuition)
  • mind is causal director of the body (problematic)
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11
Q

Dualism in early psychology

A
  • in the second half of the 19th century psychologists felt uncomfortable with the emphasis on religion, but they also don’t want to focus only on the brain
  • physiology, neuroscience and psychology become separate sciences
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12
Q

Dualism and Consciousness

A
  • Consciousness at the centre of human functioning
    > the mind is the acting unit, and it coincides with consciousness
    > the action of the individual are guided by the private, first-person experience of that individual
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13
Q

Dualism and Free Will

A
  • humans have Free Will
    > nothing happens unless licensed by the mind
  • criteria:
    > there must be a choice
    > the act must originate in the agent
    > the act must be outcome of rational deliberation
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14
Q

what are the three main problems with dualism?

A
  • the interaction problem
  • the existence of unconscious control processes (book)
  • the disappearance of mystery forces in scientific world (book)
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15
Q

The interaction problem
- who raised it?
- what is it?

A
  • Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia
    > one of the great female intellectuals of the 17th century
  • “how can a nonmaterial entity cause physical events?”
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16
Q

What is Karen Bennett’s take on the interaction problem?

A
  • the mind is not physical and has no electrical charge; it therefore cannot push bodies the way other bodies can push bodies
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17
Q

What are some problems that Karen Bennett brings forward?

A
  • Pairing problem
  • Exclusion problem
  • Physical causal closure
  • Law of conservation of energy
  • Brain damage problem
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18
Q

Pairing problem

A

“why is it that my mind controls my body and not yours?”

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19
Q

Exclusion problem

A

“if every physical event has a physical cause, where does the mind enter?”

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20
Q

Physical causal closure

A

“all physical states have pure physical causes, therefore what is the role of the mind?”

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21
Q

Law of conservation of energy

A

“the mind has no energy, therefore if it moves an arm, where is the energy coming from?”

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22
Q

Brain damage problem

A

“why would a nonmaterial entity react to brain damage?”
> e.g. brain damage, why is the mind affected as well?

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23
Q

does the interaction problem have a solution?

A
  • as soon as we ask the question “how would that work?”, we don’t have a good answer
  • the inability to provide a reasonable theory of mind-body interaction has led to the demise of dualism in scientific circles
    → now there are few real dualists left
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24
Q

book

The existence of unconscious control processes

A
  • many mental functions happen outside of consciousness
  • if consciousness is the defining feature of human existence, is human existence interrupted during sleep?
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25
Q

book

What was Leibniz’s view on consciousness and dualism?

A
  • we have so many small perceptions that we are not consciously aware of
  • the universe is a living organism, and its building blocks are units with soul and energy → monads
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26
Q

book

what type of monads are there? (Leibniz)

A
  • simple monads
    > form the bodies of all matter
    > unconscious and unorganised perception
    > motivated by keeping in line with existing harmony of the universe
  • sentient monads
    > present in all living organisms (not in inorganic material)
    > pleasure and pain, but no reason
  • rational monads
    > conscious minds of humans
    > apperception (perception+reflection)
    > there is also innate knowledge
  • supreme monad
    > controls and motivates other monads
    > God of Christian religion
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27
Q

book

The disappearance of mystery forces in the scientific world

A
  • dualism entailed the existence of an immaterial, mysterious, animistic soul
    > this was frawn upon by the scientific community
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28
Q

book

what two substances were previously postulated by science?

A
  • phlogiston (17th century)
    > makes materials flammable
    > lost importance when chemical process of combustion was understood
  • vital force
    > animistic substance thought to be present in living matter
    > before the chemical and biological differences between living and non-living matter were understood
    > debunked by discovery that it’s possible to make organic matter out of inorganic matter
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29
Q

The teleportation test
- what are some questions towards dualism?

A
  • where is the mind when you’re alseep?
  • how do unconscious mental processes come to be?
  • what happens to the mind during teleportation? (does it travel from one body to the other or is it rebuilt?)
  • through telecopying, are there now two yous?
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30
Q

book

Materialism
- in what time period did it start?

A
  • end of 19th century
    > Darwin’s evolutionary theory; many brain processes are reflexes; …
31
Q

Materialism
- what is the main idea?
- what is matter?

A
  • there is only matter
  • “matter”:
    > flexible concept
    > fields, states, processes, functions, (…) all counts as material
  • the mind is part of the physical world and obeys the laws of nature
    > this leaves many possibilities for what exactly the mind is
32
Q

book

Materialism vs Consciousness
- what was Churchland’s view?
- what is folk psychology?

A
  • consciousness is an illusion
  • consciousness is folk psychology
    > collection of beliefs lay people have about psychological functioning; no efforts made to verify them empirically or to check their internal coherence
33
Q

book

what evidence supports Churchland’s claim that consciousness is an illusion?

A
  • Milgram’s experiment (electric shocks)
    > it showed that strongly held opinions in most people’s consciousness (“I’d not hurt others”) turn out to be wrong when properly tested
  • Olson’s experiment
    > magicians give people the feeling of free choice when asking to pick a card, but in reality, the card was shown for longer time and the participants were not aware of it
34
Q

book

Materialism vs Free Will
- if our conscious mind is not the controller of our actions, does this then also imply that we have no free will?

A
  • Dawkins: selection of individuals for evolutionary theory is for survival of DNA molecules
    > in fact, the only thing that survives across generations are genes, and the genetic overlap between species is very high
    → humans are just survival machines
35
Q

book

What are the problems with Materialism?

A
  1. the identity problem
    > how can two different events be experienced the same if their realisation is brains supposedly differ?
    > how can the brain know that two events regard the same stimulus? How can humans communicate with each other?
  2. no clear explanation of how the mind could be a by-product of the biological processes in the brain
36
Q

The problem of consciousness

A
  • without a spiritual mind, it’s hard to explain how and why we have conscoius mental states
    > where does consciousness come from? why do we have a conscious mind? We could have a world with everything the same but no consciousness (the hard problem)
37
Q

What are the three problem areas with materialism?

A
  • Mental states
    > are there even mental states or are they an illusion?
  • Reductionism
    > can we reduce theories on mental states to material level?
  • Subjective experience
    > qualia (e.g. smell of roses, feeling of sadness)
38
Q

Mental states
- what are they?
- what psychology is this related to?

A
  • in daily life, mental states explain behavior
    > e.g. “to want an ice-cream”/”knowing where they sell the ice-cream” → you buy the ice-cream
  • belief-desire psychology (part of folk psychology & scientific psychology)
    = desires and intentions lead to behavior
39
Q

Mental states - the model

A

Attitude toward behavior + Subjective norm + Perceived behavioral control → lead to → Intention → leads to → Behavior

(see picture 4)

40
Q

mental states - the debate

A
  • how can mental states receive a respectable place in the scientific explanation of human behavior?
  • how can we make space for mental spaces if the mind is part of the material world?
  • is it just an illusion? should we eliminate mental states or are they still valuable in explaining behavior?
41
Q

what are the three kinds of materialism?

A
  • Eliminative
  • Reductive
  • Nonreductive
    (picture 5)
42
Q

Eliminative materialism

A
  • deny the existence of mental states
  • in the same way as we have categories that in science we wouldn’t use because they are ill-defined
    > e.g. “weeds” are a term we use in daily language in gardening, but it does not refer to a meaningful sceintific category in botany (doesn’t refer to proper set of plants)
  • “they aren’t real and wouldn’t appear in the ultimate description of the universe”
  • folk psychology = naïve physics → it will disappear with scientific progress
    > we can get rid of psychology and just study neuroscience (Paul and Patricia Churchland)
43
Q

what is Paul and Patricia Churchland’s view on eliminative materialism?

A
  • Paul: everything can be explained scientifically
  • Patricia: everything is a physical process, such as the love felt for your child
    (picture 6 and 7)
44
Q

What are the criticisms on eliminative materialism?

A
  • it is too far for most scientists
  • mental states appear too important for the explanation of behavior to dismiss them
  • unclear what should take place of the ordinary belief-desire explanation of behavior

> for now, neuroscience can’t replace psychology
→ e.g. when looking for someone’s favourite food, it is more predictive to ask them, instead of looking at neurological brain activities

45
Q

Reductive materialism

A
  • non-eliminative materialism (mental states are in the ultimate description of science)
  • there is no separate substance for mental states
  • how are mental states rooted in the brain?
46
Q

what are the two theories to explain the connection between mental states and the brain?

A
  • Identity theory
    > type-type identity
  • Functionalism
47
Q

Identity theory

A
  • mental states are brain states
    > this keeps a causal role for mental states
  • “to want an ice-cream” = “brain state X”
    → “John bought an ice-cream because he wanted one” = “John bought an ice-cream because he had brain state X”
48
Q

Type-type identity

A
  • strong type of identity theory
  • type of mental states are identical to type of brain states across individuals and time points (wanting ice-cream = brain state X)

! people don’t need to have the same exact brain state when they think of an ice-cream, it just means that thinking of an ice-cream can be connected to some type of brain state
(picture 8)

49
Q

how does type-type identity explain reductionism?

A
  • implies a one-to-one mapping of mental states
  • if this is true, then a full reduction of psychology to neuroscience is realistic and possible
50
Q

how can this be applied to theories?

A
  • regularities that can be found at high mental level, can be reduced to regularities found in low mental level (theories)
  • e.g. “people that like ice-cream are more likely to buy it” = “people with mental state X (desire) are more likely to have mental state Y (intention)”
51
Q

Reductionism

Reductionism
> what are the steps?

A
  • we reduce theories from high to low level (e.g. from psychology to neuroscience, biology and physics)

1> start with scientific law in higher order science (science to be reduced, e.g. psychology)
2> establish bridge laws: one-to-one correspondence relations between terms in the higher order science and terms in the lower order science (the reducing science, e.g. neuroscience)
3> show that the higher order law follows from the laws of the reducting science given the bridge laws

52
Q

Reductionism

Reduction - what is the most famous example?

A
  • ideal gas law → statistical mechanics

> “the temperature of gas influences the pressure on the wall” → “how fast the particles move inlfuence the force the particles hit the wall with”
(picture 9)

53
Q

Reductionism

why is type-type identity theory considered too strong?

A
  • mental states are often defined by their contents, and that content is very likely to be encoded in very different ways
54
Q

Reductionism

what are examples of difference in encodings?
> what do they show?

A
  • neural plasticity: the same mental functions can be performed in different ways
  • individual differences in physical makeup: brains are quite heterogeneous, especially at the level of patterns of neural connections
  • even the same brain could encode certain thoughts or feelings differently at different time points

! this is evidence that type-type identity theory is too strong

55
Q

Reductionism

materialism - what would happen in the teleportation test?

A
  • suppose your mental states are your brain states and there is a one-to-one mapping of mental states to brain states
    > if particles are recomposed in the same way, then mental states would be the same as well
  • what about telecopying?
    > we would expect second person to have same mind as first person
56
Q

Multiple Realizability - what is it?

A
  • even though we might have same type of mental state, it is realized very differently across people/time (no type to detect)
    > reductionism is blocked
    > evidence against type-type identity theory
    (picture 10)
57
Q

what is the second type of identity theory?

A
  • Token-token identity
  • “to want ice-cream” = “brain state X for John”, “brain state Z for Jane”, “brain state Y for Jerry”…
    → we do have identity of brain states with mental states
    (picture 11)
58
Q

token-token identity vs reductionism

A
  • token-token identity blocks reductionism
    > we cannot construct bridge laws (no prediction)
    > hence the laws of psychology cannot be reduced to the laws of biology or physics
59
Q

how are token-token identity and functionalism connected?

A
  • in token-token identity mental states are still true, but it is not meaningful to talk about them this way
    > this is what functionalism would do
60
Q

Functionalism and non-reductionism

A
  • consistent with non-reductionist materialism
  • important to characterize each mental state by what role they play (e.g. in behavior)
61
Q

why is functionalism important?
What did the computer show?

A
  • answer to the problem of multiple realizability (that blocks reductionism)
  • Turing machine was invented (computers)
    → the computer showed some sort of thinking/reasoning
    → we don’t need physical brain, we can also use machines and install thinking
62
Q

what is the computer metaphor?

A

mind:body = software:hardware
- the mind is a program that “runs on” the brain
> e.g. if we want to know how microsoft works, we don’t open the computer and look at the cables
- mental states are characterized by their function (role they play), not their realization (brain state)

63
Q

Functionalism (+ example)

A
  • defines mental states in terms of their role
  • “fear of spiders” = “a function that makes people avoid spiders”

> “fear of spiders” is not identical to a brain state, but realized in the brain
(maybe realized differently in brain in different people, and maybe realizable even in computer)

64
Q

Realization vs Causation (euros example)

A
  • when using ten euros we don’t analyze the coins themselves, but we look for what function those ten euros have in a larger scale
  • it plays a certain role in our social, psychological and economic system
  • whether it’s made of iron or paper doesn’t matter → it is multiple realizable!
65
Q

what is a pitfall of identity and causation?

A
  • if A and B are the same, A cannot cause B
  • if the brain and mind are the same, the brain cannot cause the mind
    → the mind is the brain in operation
66
Q

what are the view of functionalism on reductionism and identity theory?

A
  • psychological explanations are genuine
  • reductionism is structurally impossible
  • identity theory is valid only in its token-token form
    > more helpful to characterize mental states by their role, and not by the brain state

!!! functionalism is a type of non-reductive materialism, but not all non-reductive materialists are functionalists
(picture 12)

67
Q

the teleportation test - functionalism

A
  • mental states are realized in patterns of information processing in the brain
  • if we build a new brain with same patterns, then we would have the same mind
  • doesn’t have to be exactly same material, it just needs to run the same programs (like computers)
68
Q

Idealism

A
  • the material world is a creation of the mind
  • consciousness is a virtual reality headset
69
Q

what other type of non-reductive materialism is there?

she said it won’t necessarily be in the exam

A

Property dualism
- mind is an emergent property of the brain

70
Q

Property dualism

A
  • in complex systems, higher order properties emerge out of lowe order processes (interaction both ways)
  • (emergence connects to property dualism)
    ! even though there may not be an autonomous mental substance, there are autonomous mental properties
71
Q

what theory is supported by most scientists (for now)?

A
  • non-reductionist materialism
    > mind is not separate
    > there are mental states tightly connected to brain states
  • reductionism seems too strong
72
Q

~~ from the book ~~

A

! the book differentiates dualism vs materialism vs functionalism
Riet told us to think of functionalism as one type of non-reductive materialism

73
Q

the self

A

the feeling of being an individual with private experiences, feelings and beliefs
→ who interacts in a coherent and purposeful way with the environment

74
Q

Summary of mind-body problem

A
  • refers to the relationship between mind and brain
  • three approaches:
    > dualism: mind and brain are two independent entities
    > materialism: the mind is a by-product of the biological workings of the brain
    > functionalism: the mind is realised in the brain, but the information can be copied to another machine with the same structure

Fundamentals p.2 (6 decks)

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