L1 - The mind-body problem Flashcards
In this lecture:
- mind-body problem
- Dualism
- Materialism
> eliminative, reductive and non-reductive - Functionalism and multiple realizability
What is the Mind-Body problem?
- the issue of how the mind and body relate to each other
> also called mind-brain problem
What was Elisabeth’s opinion on the mind-body probem?
(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
what are the different possible views on the debate?
- monism (materialism vs idealism)
- dualism (substance-dualism)
(picture 2)
Monism
- what is it?
- what are its two contrasting ideas?
“there is only one kind of substance”
- Materialism
> “ultimately everything is material”
- Idealism
> “ultimately everything is mental”
What is Dualism?
“there are two kinds of substances”
! also called Cartesian Dualism
dualism and religion (+ demonology)
- dualism is central to religions
- demonologist view of psychology
(mental disorders are due to possessions by evil spirits)
what is Substance-dualism?
- who started it?
“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)
How are the two substances?
> what are their characteristics?
- 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
What are the two main ideas related to dualism?
- mind inhabitates our body (prevalent intuition)
- mind is causal director of the body (problematic)
Dualism in early psychology
- 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
Dualism and Consciousness
- 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
Dualism and Free Will
- 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
what are the three main problems with dualism?
- the interaction problem
- the existence of unconscious control processes (book)
- the disappearance of mystery forces in scientific world (book)
The interaction problem
- who raised it?
- what is it?
- Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia
> one of the great female intellectuals of the 17th century - “how can a nonmaterial entity cause physical events?”
What is Karen Bennett’s take on the interaction problem?
- the mind is not physical and has no electrical charge; it therefore cannot push bodies the way other bodies can push bodies
What are some problems that Karen Bennett brings forward?
- Pairing problem
- Exclusion problem
- Physical causal closure
- Law of conservation of energy
- Brain damage problem
Pairing problem
“why is it that my mind controls my body and not yours?”
Exclusion problem
“if every physical event has a physical cause, where does the mind enter?”
Physical causal closure
“all physical states have pure physical causes, therefore what is the role of the mind?”
Law of conservation of energy
“the mind has no energy, therefore if it moves an arm, where is the energy coming from?”
Brain damage problem
“why would a nonmaterial entity react to brain damage?”
> e.g. brain damage, why is the mind affected as well?
does the interaction problem have a solution?
- 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
book
The existence of unconscious control processes
- many mental functions happen outside of consciousness
- if consciousness is the defining feature of human existence, is human existence interrupted during sleep?
book
What was Leibniz’s view on consciousness and dualism?
- 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
book
what type of monads are there? (Leibniz)
-
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
book
The disappearance of mystery forces in the scientific world
- dualism entailed the existence of an immaterial, mysterious, animistic soul
> this was frawn upon by the scientific community
book
what two substances were previously postulated by science?
-
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
The teleportation test
- what are some questions towards dualism?
- 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?
book
Materialism
- in what time period did it start?
- end of 19th century
> Darwin’s evolutionary theory; many brain processes are reflexes; …
Materialism
- what is the main idea?
- what is matter?
- 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
book
Materialism vs Consciousness
- what was Churchland’s view?
- what is folk psychology?
- 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
book
what evidence supports Churchland’s claim that consciousness is an illusion?
- 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
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?
- 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
book
What are the problems with Materialism?
- 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? - no clear explanation of how the mind could be a by-product of the biological processes in the brain
The problem of consciousness
- 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)
What are the three problem areas with materialism?
-
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)
Mental states
- what are they?
- what psychology is this related to?
- 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
Mental states - the model
Attitude toward behavior + Subjective norm + Perceived behavioral control → lead to → Intention → leads to → Behavior
(see picture 4)
mental states - the debate
- 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?
what are the three kinds of materialism?
- Eliminative
- Reductive
- Nonreductive
(picture 5)
Eliminative materialism
- 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)
what is Paul and Patricia Churchland’s view on eliminative materialism?
- Paul: everything can be explained scientifically
- Patricia: everything is a physical process, such as the love felt for your child
(picture 6 and 7)
What are the criticisms on eliminative materialism?
- 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
Reductive materialism
- 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?
what are the two theories to explain the connection between mental states and the brain?
- Identity theory
> type-type identity - Functionalism
Identity theory
- 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”
Type-type identity
- 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)
how does type-type identity explain reductionism?
- 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
how can this be applied to theories?
- 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)”
Reductionism
Reductionism
> what are the steps?
- 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
Reductionism
Reduction - what is the most famous example?
- 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)
Reductionism
why is type-type identity theory considered too strong?
- mental states are often defined by their contents, and that content is very likely to be encoded in very different ways
Reductionism
what are examples of difference in encodings?
> what do they show?
- 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
Reductionism
materialism - what would happen in the teleportation test?
- 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
Multiple Realizability - what is it?
- 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)
what is the second type of identity theory?
- 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)
token-token identity vs reductionism
- 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
how are token-token identity and functionalism connected?
- 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
Functionalism and non-reductionism
- consistent with non-reductionist materialism
- important to characterize each mental state by what role they play (e.g. in behavior)
why is functionalism important?
What did the computer show?
- 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
what is the computer metaphor?
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)
Functionalism (+ example)
- 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)
Realization vs Causation (euros example)
- 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!
what is a pitfall of identity and causation?
- 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
what are the view of functionalism on reductionism and identity theory?
- 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)
the teleportation test - functionalism
- 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)
Idealism
- the material world is a creation of the mind
- consciousness is a virtual reality headset
what other type of non-reductive materialism is there?
she said it won’t necessarily be in the exam
Property dualism
- mind is an emergent property of the brain
Property dualism
- 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
what theory is supported by most scientists (for now)?
- non-reductionist materialism
> mind is not separate
> there are mental states tightly connected to brain states - reductionism seems too strong
~~ from the book ~~
! the book differentiates dualism vs materialism vs functionalism
Riet told us to think of functionalism as one type of non-reductive materialism
the self
the feeling of being an individual with private experiences, feelings and beliefs
→ who interacts in a coherent and purposeful way with the environment
Summary of mind-body problem
- 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
