Lecture 7 the Mind-Body problem Flashcards
hebben we nu al een antwoord op de mind-body problem
nee, nog steeds zijn deze vragen niet beantwoord
wat is het overkoepelende probleem van mind body
elke theorie heeft voor en nadelen.
monism =
there is only one kind of substance
dualism =
there are two kinds of substances
monism splitst in …
materialism & idealism
materialism =
ultimately everything is material
idealism=
ultimately everything is mental
dualism splitst in…
haha instinker
dualism kan alleen substance-dualism zijn
substance-dualism =
mind and body are kinds of distinct entities
descartes had een …. view of the world
mechanistic
wat zei descartes over mind and body
mind and body must be different entities, as the body is a machine but the mind is not
wat dacht descartes over animals
dacht dat zij ook machines waren (alles was machines, except for the mind -> spiritual substance)
3 problemen van descartes
- interaction problem
- causal closure problem
- brain damage problem
interaction problem:
How can a nonmaterial entity cause physical
events?
causal closure problem:
if every physical event has a physical cause, where does the mind enter?
how about the law of conservation of energy?
causal closure betekent dat elke verandering in de fysieke wereld een fysieke oorzaak heeft. dit roept dus de vraag op hoe de een spirituele substance dan ook een invloed hierop uit kan oefenen.
brain damage problem:
why would a nonmaterial entity react to brain damage?
who raised the interaction problem
elisabeth, princess of bohemia
Nowadays, no theory can afford to be
inconsistent with established scientific
theory without answering for it
oke
the teleportation test
suppose that you teleport someone: what would happen? does the mind travel with you, or not?
(hiermee kan je testen of je meer materialistic of dualistic bent)
welke vraag kan je nog meer stellen over mind body problem
where do you think the mind goes when you sleep? does it stay on or off?
telecopying=
instead of moving the particles of the body, you copy them. would that mean that you get two minds, or not?
materialism kenmerken
- The materialist maintains that, in the end, there is only matter
- The concept of “matter” is however quite flexible (so fields, states, processes, functions, etc. all count as “material”)
- Most important is that the mind, whatever it may be, is a part of physical world and obeys the laws of nature
- This still leaves many possibilities for exactly what the mind is
hoe staan we er nu een beetje in
- Thinking about mind and body as separate entities seems easy
- However, as soon as we ask the question “how would that work?” it turns out we don’t really have a good answer
- The inability to provide a reasonable theory of mind-body interaction has led to demise of dualism in scientific circles
(dus bijna niemand is meer een dualist)
wat is kritiek op materialism
without a spiritual mind, its hard to explain how and why we have conscious mental states.
3 lastige knelpunten:
- mental states, or not?
- reductionism, or not?
- subjective experience, or not?
mental states =
a state of mind of a person, that explains behaviour (wanting ice cream + knowing where to buy ice cream = buying ice cream)
=belief-desire psychology
example of mental states model
the theory of planned behaviour:
attitute + subjective norm + perceived behavioural control —–> intention —-> behaviour
wat is het probleem van mental states bij materialism
how can mental states receive a respectable place in the scientific explanation of behaviour? if the mind does not exist as a distinct substance, then how can mental states exist at all? or is it all an illusion, and should we eliminate mental states (beetje behaviourism)
eliminative materialism=
deny the existence of mental states. mental states are not real and will not appear in the ultimate description of the universe.
wat zegt eliminative materialism over folk psychology
folk psychology is just like naive physics, with scientific progress it will disappear
welk koppel hoort bij eliminative materialism
paul and patricia churchland
Interviewer: Are there any implications
of neuroscience that you feel unsettled
by?
Patricia Churchland: I’d have to say no.
It takes some getting used to, but I’m
not freaked out by it. I certainly
understand the ambivalence people
have. On one hand, they’re fascinated
because it helps explain their mother’s
Alzheimer’s, but on the other, they
think, “Gosh, the love that I feel for my
child is really just neural chemistry?”
Well, actually, yes, it is. But that doesn’t
bother me
oke
wat is kritiek op eliminative materialism
- a bridge too far for many scientists
- mental states appear too important for the explanation of behaviour to dismiss them
- it is unclear what should take the place of ordinary belief-desire explanations of behaviour, neuroscience that can do this is currently science fiction
welke vormen van materialism hebben het wel over mental states, en welke niet
wel: reductive & non-reductive materialism (=non-eliminative materialism)
niet: eliminative materialism
non-eliminative materialism =
one can deny that the mind exists as a substance, but still makes room for mental states. to do this, one must produce an account of how mental states are rooted in brain states
what are related attempts to non-eliminative materialism
identity theory
functionalism
identity theory=
- mental states are brain states
- ‘to want an ice cream’ = ‘brain state X’
- john bought ice cream because he wanted one, but it really means that john bought ice cream because he had brain state X
- identity theory was developed to keep a causal role for mental states, not to deny it!
dus bij welke lijn hoort identity theory
non-eliminative materialism
is er ruimte voor mental states in identity theory
ja, they are meaningful, but the way to relate them to the brain is by saying that each mental state is identical to some brain states.
wat is het verschil tussen eliminative materialism en identity theory
bij identity theory denk je dat beiden gelijk zijn aan elkaar, en je kan dus op verschillende levels praten over hetzelfde. mental states worden dus wel benoemd, maar worden gewoon gezien als hetzelfde als de brain states.
bij eliminative materialism denken ze dat het een soort illusie is, ill defined and we should ignore them.
wat is een sterkere versie van deze gedachte van identity theory
type-type identity: types of mental states (e.g. wanting an ice cream) are identical to types of brain states (brain state X) across individuals and time. (als ik en mijn leraar een ice cream hebben, hebben we allemaal dezelfde brain states en dezelfde mental states).
this implies that there is a one-to-one mapping of mental states to brain states, which would make a full reduction of psychology to neuroscience a realistic possibility
reduction therefore requires…
type-type identity.
voorbeeld van type-type identity
i like ice cream (voor iedereen ongeveer dezelfde brain states) leidt dan tot i am going to buy ice cream (identical brain states for everyone)
hier is ‘i like i cream’ bv dus een mental state
a certain brainstate then always leads to another brain state.
reductionism:
- start with a scientific law in a higher order science (physics is the lowest level, psych is hogerop)
- explain relations on higher level sciences by referring to lower level sciences. establish bridge laws: these map the one-to-one correspondence relations between terms in the higher order science and terms in the lower order science.
- the higher order law should follow from the laws of the reducing science, given these bridge laws
The most famous reduction in
the history of science is ….
the reduction of the ideal gas laws to statistical mechanics through the bridge law temperature=mean kinetic energy
er zijn weinig voorbeelden van situaties waarin deze bridge laws ook echt werken
oke
in het voorbeeld, wat is higher en wat is lower
higher order: temperature - pressure
lower order: how fast do particles move - with what force do the particles bump to the wall
wat is kritiek op identity theory
mental states are often defined by their content, and that content is very likely to be encoded in many different ways for different people and different times. therefore these brain types cannot really be identified.
3 voorbeelden van differences in encoding (wat dus bewijs geeft tegen de identity theory):
- neural plasticity
- individual differences
- even the same brain could encode certain thoughts or feelings differently at different time points
neural plasticity=
implies that the same mental functions can be performed in different ways -> als iemand brain damage heeft, dan kan een ander deel van het brein hiervoor corrigeren. dan kan uiteindelijk dus dezelfde mental state worden bereikt, maar echter door compleet andere brainstates. dit klopt dus niet
individual differences =
in physical makeup suggest that brains may be quite heterogeneous, especially at the fine grained level of patterns of neural connections
wat zou je kunnen zeggen bij telecopying
with telecopying you could say that the destruction of your old body on earth is murder
nonreductionist materialism=
maakt gebruik van multiple realizibility: different people can all think about ice cream, but this presents differently in the brain. there is not one common type of brainstate. dit is ook zo voor de mental state ‘i am going to buy ice cream’.
type-type identity is killed by…
multiple realizability
welke identity theory hoort bij reductive materialism, en welke bij nonreductive materialism
type-type = reductive
token-token = non-reductive
token-token identity=
each token of a mental state (a specific mental state of a person at a certain time) is identical to some brain token
dit verschilt dus per persoon: mijn token voor ice cream is niet perse hetzelfde als die van mijn buurman, maar correspondeert wel altijd met een bepaalde brain state X bij mij.
wat is kritiek op token-token identity
het is lastig om hier iets mee uit te vinden, want er kan nooit een lawful relationship gevonden worden tussen mental states en brain states, omdat het toch per persoon en per tijdsmoment verschilt.
wat doet token-token identity met reductionism
het blokt reductionism: although each mental state is, in the end, produced by brain states, we do still need the higher mental states theories to make lawful relations. we cannot construct the bridge laws, therefore the laws of psychology cannot be reduced to the laws of biology or physics.
dus waar is reductionism wel mogelijk, en waar niet (van de identity theories)
type-type = wel mogelijk
token-token = niet mogelijk
identity theory is an answer to…
how do we relate mental states to brain states?
because we belief in only material substance. identity theory: lets do that by making them identical to each other
- type-type = reductionism
- token-token = not reductionism
wat is het lastige aan identity theory
it may be true, but it is not helpful for us to think of them in brain states, because of multiple realizability.
what gave rise to functionalism
- multiple realizability
- opkomst van Turing machine
wat liet de turing machine zien
maybe we should not look at the mind vs the brain, but more as the mind as a function of the brain
wat is de mind en wat is de brain in de turing analogie
mind = software (zoals word)
brain = hardware
-> word =/= hardware, maar word kan ontstaan en goed draaien door de hardware.
wat is de turing analogy nog een keer
the mind is a program that runs on the brain -> mental states are characterized by their function, not their realization.
functionalism defines mental states in terms of their…
role
dus fear of spiders is not identical to a type of brain states, but it is realized within the brain.
oke
realization versus causation
not all concepts are best understood by studying their physical makeup!
bv. 10 euro is niet 10 euro omdat het van papier is, maar omdat je er iets van 10 euro van kan maken. het kunnen ook coins zijn of met kaart betalen. het gaat om de rol die geld speelt!
wat is een logische fout die functionalisten aanwijzen
als je zegt dat de brain causes the mind -> dan benoem je dus eigenlijk al dat het twee aparte dingen zijn!! dan kunnen het dus niet 2 dezelfde dingen zijn. materialisten zouden echt moeten zeggen dat die twee hetzelfde ding zijn.
for functionalists, psychological explanations are genuine.
oke
functionalism gaat samen met…
multiple realisability
even een overzichtje maken van alle stromingen en hun problemen etc (zie PA 5)
okeeee echt doen he
wat zegt functionalism over reductionism en identity theory
reductionism is niet mogelijk. token-token identity is wel mogelijk (maar nogsteeds wel meer helpful om te kijken naar hun functie)
teleportation test for functionalists
you survive teleportation, even something similar (2 verschillende computers) kunnen nogsteeds leiden tot dezelfde mental processen (2 verschillende computers hebben word)
teleportation test for materialists
you need to have the exact same brain to get the exact same mental states
most functionalists are …. materialists
non-reductive
even schemaatje maken van what substance slide in ppt.
oke
(met monism etc, boomdiagram)
functionalism is not inconsistent with materialism in general!! het is niet compleet verschillend van materialisme, want nonreductive materialists can be functionists.
oke
materialists claim functionism because….
mental states are realized in physical states. (daarom zeggen ze dat zij het hebben bedacht)
