MBIT Flashcards
25 marker plan
Intro:
- define MBIT
- all mental states reducible to the brain
- qualitative v numerical identity; Leibniz’s law
- most aspects of MBIT are compelling, but it is refuted by the chauvinist objection
P1: support for MBIT
-physicalist accounts more precise than dualists’
-interaction problems
-neuroscience studies to show that mental is linked to physical
-nomological danglers
ÇA:
-Putnam and vocab differences
-Smart illiterate peasant; vocab used for brains is different for minds therefore the two aren’t necessarily linked
Objection:
-MBIT distinction between “meaning” and “reference”
-morning star ex
P2: spatial location problem
-Leibniz’s Law says brain and mind are different if differing in one aspect
-mind is non-extended, brain is
-Putnam argues that link can be made between the two if they occupy the same space; but Arm pain is not in the brain
ÇA:
-Putnam refutes his own argument: mirror ex
-MBIT argues common vocab leads to misunderstandings about the placement of desires + lags behind modern terms
-the mind can have physical properties: being hot accompanies the person but hasn’t got a shape
P3: evidence for introspection
-mental states have irreducibility of subjectivity (pain), which are not objectively observable - unlike the brain processes: by Leibniz’s law mind and brain differ
ÇA:
-mind can seem different through introspection and the brain can look like a pulsing mass of electrochemical impulses, but they could be the same thing
Objection:
-hard problem of consciousness: we seem to have and irreducible and first person ontology of consciousness
-Chalmers zombies: physicalism claims that consciousness is of a physical nature; therefore a world identical physically must also contain consciousness, but we can conceive of a world in which there is physicalism but not consciousness (zombies) therefore physicalism is false and so MBIT fails
P4: chauvinism
- MBIT excludes other species from having mental states
-type-type and token-token distinction
-MBIT is type-type and so excludes MULTIPLE REALISABILITY
ÇA:
-MBIT can convert theory to a token-token to allow multiple realisability
Objection:
-MBIT becomes meaningless: a substance resembling water could be called water, when this is not true - then anything could be water
-Kripke’s expansion on necessary and sufficient conditions
Conc:
MBIT theory seems compelling on some levels but is ultimately undermined by chauvinism
Essay P1:
-MBIT is backed by modern neuroscience and is much more specific in defining a link between the mental and physical than dualism
-dualism struggles to explain interactionism
-example of act of mental arithmetic causing sectors of the brain to “light up”
-nomological danglers: J C C Smart says if every sensation can be explained via physics, it makes no sense that consciousness wouldn’t be: if it didn’t fit into universal laws, then mental processes would become nomological danglers
ÇA:
-Putnam considers the different terminologies used to speak of brain states and mental states, which are different
-Smart takes the example of an illiterate peasant, who can adequately describe and ache according to her folk psychology without having specific knowledge of mental states
-it follows from the difference in vocab that the brain and mental aren’t necessarily linked
Objection:
-MBIT difference between “meaning” and “reference”: two different meanings could have the same reference (morning star and evening star are both Venus)
Essay P2:
-By Leibniz’s law, it suffices for one thing to differ between two “identical substances” for them not to be the same
-the mind is non-extended and the brain is extended; so they cannot be the same
-Putnam argues that a link can be made between the two of they occupy the same space, but an ache in an arm is clearly not in the same location as the brain, so the two phenomena cannot be linked
ÇA:
-Putnam refutes his own argument but showing that two phenomena do no have to occupy the same space to be reducible to each other. A mirror image behind a surface is produced by light reflecting off the surface; the reduction and the phenomenon being reduced are in different spatial locations, but the reduction still happens
-MBIT suggests that common vocabulary is behind our misunderstandings of the placement of desires - more advanced neuroscientific terms would evade this problem
-the mind can be said to have some spatial qualities: “being hot” isn’t circular, but “being hot” accompanied the person where they go (has a spatial location)
Essay P3
-Evidence of introspection
-mental states have irreducibility of subjectivity (pain), which are not objectively observable - unlike the brain processes: by Leibniz’s law mind and brain differ
ÇA:
-mind can seem different through introspection and the brain can look like a pulsing mass of electrochemical impulses, but they could be the same thing (like meaning and reference distinction)
Objection:
-hard problem of consciousness: we seem to have and irreducible and first person ontology of consciousness
-Chalmers zombies: physicalism claims that consciousness is of a physical nature; therefore a world identical physically must also contain consciousness, but we can conceive of a world in which there is physicalism but not consciousness (zombies) therefore physicalism is false and so MBIT fails
Essay P4
-MBIT seems chauvinistic; it doesn’t allow species with no brains to have mental states if “pain-= C fibres” and they don’t have C fibres
-this is because MBIT is considered a type-type theory, where by “type”, we mean a general class; token-token theory states that a “token” is only a representative of that class
-so the feeling of “wishing it was Friday” is a type, the feeling of “wishing it was Friday on a Thursday” and “wishing it was a Friday on a Tuesday” are two tokens of this type
-type-type theories exclude the possibility of MULTIPLE REALISABILITY, the idea that one mental state can be applied to different brains
-but we logically want to say that a “pain” behaviour is valid if we see an alien squirming in discomfort, even if they have no brains
ÇA:
-MBIT could convert the theory into a token-token one to allow multiple realisability, where “pain” can be taken as a type, and different sorts of “pain” (according to each species) are tokens of this type
Objection:
-this renders MBIT meaningless: it would be akin to saying that any substance that resembles water (with the same apparent functions) IS water;
water is H20, but a token-token approach would lead to scientists reducing all different molecule arrangements to “water”: then anything could be water, and the concept is absurd
Essay P5
Kripke argues that the statement “pain= C fibres firing” is a contingent, rather than a necessary, truth; he wants to say that the statement would have to be necessarily true to be fully convincing
- “pain= C fibres firing” can be imagined as not true in all possible worlds - therefore it is a contingent statement
- in addition, Kripke uses the terms “rigid” and “non rigid” designator to determine whether or not a statement is contingent or necessary; a rigid designator picks out the exact same unique thing in all worlds, whereas a non-rigid designator doesn’t
- Kripke argues that any identity statement that contains a NRD is a contingent one
- to illustrate, he takes the example of “water=H20”: we seem to be able to imagine water as being H50, but Kripke argues that this is THE ILLUSION OF CONTINGENCY: we would not be imagining water at all
- therefore, the statement is composed of two RDs and so is a necessary truth
- “pain= C Fibres firing” is composed of two RDs, and should therefore be a necessary truth
- the MBIT would label the belief that pain ISN’T “c fibres firing” as an illusion of contingency - yet Kripke says it is in fact a valid belief, since “pain” refers to a sensation, and if would be absurd to say that your pain (even if you don’t have C fibres) is not being experienced. It would be absurd to maintain that when I am imagining pain, I am in fact not.
- therefore for Kripke, MBIT fails as a theory
