Metaphysics of mind - Dualism

Question 1

What’s substance dualism?

Answer 1

Two kinds of substances - physical and mental, physical being your body, arms and legs and the brain.
The mind is made from a different substance than the brain and is non-physical, similar to things like ghosts and souls as you can’t touch or see them. Interactionist theories

Question 2

Substance - What’s Descartes concievability argument?

Answer 2

-If I can clearly and distinctly recognise the nature of two things to be different, then they must be
-I clearly and distinctly recognise the nature of the mind to just be consciousness
-I clearly and distinctly recognise the nature of the body to just be extension
C- Therefore the mind is a distinct substance from the body
Because it’s concievable, it’s therefore possible for the mind and body to exist seperately

Question 3

Conceivability response - what’s concievable may not be possible batman/bruce wayne example

Answer 3

descartes infers from his claim that mind without body is concievable - leading to his conclusion that the mind exists without one.
Leads to a fallacy e.g:
1. I concieve of Batman being a caped cruisader
2. I concieve Bruce Wayne not as a caped cruisader, but a billionare
3. Therefore, Batman is not bruce waybe
However, knowing the story, Batman is bruce wayne’s secret identity and so the conclusion that he’s not bruce wayne is clearly false - he is

Question 4

Conceivability response - how does it lead to masked man fallacy - Conclusion

Answer 4

This means it’s not possible for Batman to be anyone else, despite it being concieveable that he can be someone else, the reality is he is Bruce Wayne and to believe otherwise falls for the masked man fallacy.
This argument is fallicious as it changes from talking about ideas to talking about things themselves, but our ideas can be mistaken and what we may have an idea of as possible is in fact impossible

Question 5

Conceivability response - what’s concievable may not be possible - Batman argument applied to Descartes’

Answer 5

Just because you have an idea of batman and bruce wayne as different people, doesnt mean it’s possible that they are
Similarly- just because you have the idea that the mind and body as serperate things, doesn’t mean its possible that they are.

Question 6

Substance - What’s Descartes divisibility argument?

Answer 6

The body is a divisible substance, it can be divided into different parts if you lose a limb however you aren’t able to, for example, have a half a thought meaning the mind is an indivisible substance. Therefore the mind and body are separate substances

Question 7

Substance - What’s Lebniz law of indiscernibility?

Answer 7

If two things are the same, then they have the same properties e.g Water and H2O have the property of wetness because they’re the same thing.
Similarly true, if two things have different properties, then they can’t be the same thing, the mind and the body have the different properties of ‘divisible’ and ‘indivisible’ meaning they’re different things and therefore separate substances

Question 8

Divisibility response - The mind is divisible

Answer 8

-There are cases where the mind is divided - forms of mental illnesses like split/multiple personality disorder where people can have parts of the mind that are completely seperate from each other, may have
seperate memories, personalities beliefs and even ages and may be completely unaware of the other parts
-Similarly, people who may undergo a corpus callostomy surgery where the corpus callosum (connection between right and left sides of the brain) is severed, cutting the brain in half. Some cases has resulted in the right and left hemispheres having different personalities, beliefs and taste

Question 9

what’s Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia’s argument against substance dualism?

Answer 9

Challenges interactionism - if the mind is a non-physical substance how can it intract/ have causal effect with the physical world? Although mental states affect our behaviour, how does the non-physical mental state of hunger, cross over into the physical world and cause us to go and get food. We can explain that physical things move other physical things, for example when you push a door, your hand (physical thing) connects with a door (also a physical thing) and causes it to move, but how is it possible for a non-physical thing to interact with a physical thing in the same way?

Question 10

princess elisabeth of bohemia - conclusion of causation argument

Answer 10

Physical things only move if they’re pushed by another physical thing and allows it to move, so if substance dualism is true, then the mind is physical and can’t interact with the body. Therefore, either substance dualism is false, or the mind can’t move the body, but we know that the mind can move the body as it does everyday, so substance dualism must be false & mental states are physical

Question 11

whats the problem of other mind against substance dualism

Answer 11

we have experience of our minds - thoughts & feelings, but never of other people’s, only their behaviour of their physical body. so how do we know there is a mind attached to a body at all? SD claims mind & body are seperate substances so it’s possible to have physical behaviour without a physical mind. so if SD is true, its impossible to know if other minds exist

Question 12

Property dualism - What’s property dualism

Answer 12

don’t believe the mind is non-physical but that there are SOME non-physical properties in the mind, or quaila, that aren’t subservient (dependent) on anything physical

Question 13

What’s qualia?

Answer 13

subjective properties/qualities of experiences e.g the blueness of my experience looking at a clear sky
-The taste of an apple when eating
not properties of the object themself- properties of my own experiece of the objects

Question 14

whats Interactionalist dualism?

Answer 14

The mind can interact with the physical world in both directions e.g mental state of hunger causes you to go and get food
physical experience of getting punched causes mental state of pain
(substance dualism)

Question 15

what’s physicalism?

Answer 15

everything is physical or supervenes on the physical, its impossible to have two identical physical states with different mental states.

Question 16

how does property dualist chalmers zombie argument overcome the causation argument?

Answer 16

Unlike substance dualism property dualists don’t argue the mind is non-physical, just that there are non-physical properties in the mind, or qualia. Property dualism is able to avoid the causation argument as it’s an epiphenomenalist theory, meaning it believes that the physical can only interact with the mental and that qualia doesn’t have a causal effect on anything. Chalmers supports property dualism with his philosophical zombie argument. He argues that we can conceive of a world that’s identical to this one, but contains no consciousness, only philosophical zombies

Question 17

what’s a philosophical zombie?

Answer 17

a person functionally, behaviourally and physically identical to humans but has no qualia e.g when a human gets hurt, they experience qualia associated with pain, and although a philosophical zombie may say ‘ouch’ and experience the same brain activity as a human, it won’t experience the qualia of pain.

Question 18

whats chalmers zombie argument conclusion?

Answer 18

If these zombies are conceivable, then they’re possible, and if they’re possible then qualia are non-physical and don’t supervene on the physical. If qualia are non-physical, then property dualism is therefore true.

Question 19

what’s the argument against chalmers zombie argument that what’s concievable isnt metaphysically possible?

Answer 19

just because something is conceivable, doesn’t mean it’s metaphysically possible. It can be conceived that water can be called H30 instead of H20 as ‘water is H30’ is not an analytic truth, so although we know it’s false, we can conceive of water in a lake or glass being H30. Yet water is H30 can’t be metaphysically possible as the chemical structure H20 is an essential property of water and so if we imagine water not being h20, we wouldn’t be imagining water. Similarly, if qualia are an essential property of a physical thing, then it isn’t metaphysically possible for two identical physical beings to have different qualia. Therefore, philosophical zombies are metaphysically impossible.

Question 20

whats the knowledge/mary’s room argument for property dualism?

Answer 20

scientist Mary has been confined in a black and white room all her life, where everything she learns, sees and experiences is in black and white. In this room, she learns every physical fact about the world, including every possible physical fact about human experience of colour and what happens neurologically.

Question 21

knowledge argument - what’s Jackson’s argument against physicalism

Answer 21

physicalism argues everything supervenes on the physical and so there’s only physical knowledge and facts, meaning Mary would therefore know every fact, including human experience of colour.
But mary doesn’t have all knowledge despite having all physical knowledge, she doesnt know what it’s like to see blue for the first time on a colour television or looking up at the sky
So if mary learns something new despite having all physical knowledge, then it means her new knowledge is non-physical and so knowledge of qualia is non-physical, meaning physicalism is false

Question 22

whats epiphenonemonism dualism?

Answer 22

the physical world can interact and cause mental states (getting punched causes pain) but the mental states can’t interact with the physical world. they only work in one direction
(property dualism)

Question 23

how does evolution rule out epiphenomenlism?

Answer 23

Evolution says that genetic mutations occur randomly and are beneficial to reproduction or survival. For example, giraffes having long necks causes them not to die of starvation as they’re able to reach their food. The causal effect of having a long neck gene is benefical to survival and explains why giraffes have them. Along with beneficial mutations, there are also useless mutations, which involves epiphenomenalist qualia as they have no causal effects and so can’t offer any advantages. Having the brain state of pain is advantageous as it allows for the animal to move away from danger that could hurt them, but the qualia state of pain along with this has no advantages as the brain state alone is enough to protect an animal from any danger or harm to itself

Question 24

evolution rule out epiphenomenlism conclusion

Answer 24

So if we believe the mind comes from evolution, then why would it evolve qualia when it has no benefits? Either qualia have causal interaction or epiphenomenalism is false, but we know that qualia have evolved and so must have some causal powers otherwise it wouldn’t have. Therefore, epiphenomenalism is false.

Question 25

whats the introspective self knowledge response to epiphenominal dualism

Answer 25

if qualia/mental states have no causal effects, then knowledge of qualia/mental states is impossible. if my brain state causes all my beliefs abt my mental state, then id have the same beliefs about my mental state even if my qualia was different

Question 26

introspective self knowledge - whats an example of having the same beliefs of mental states

Answer 26

when i have the brain state of pain, my pain qualia could be like red qualia, swap places with my pleasure qualia, or dissappear entirely and i’d still form the belief ‘i am in pain’

Question 27

introspective self knowledge - how does it go against epiphenomalism (concl)

Answer 27

if we assume that property dualism is true then introspective self knowledge (of mental states) is impossible. but we know this is incorrect (i can know im in pain) so epiphen is false

Question 28

Dualism 25 marker intro

Answer 28

Dualism is a theory that can be split into substance dualism and property dualism, substance believing that the mind and body are separate substances and can interact with each other, also making it an interactionist theory, while property dualism believes that some mental properties are non-physical or qualia, which are subjective properties of experience such as the taste of an apple or the blueness of a clear sky. Property dualists also believe these properties can only interact with each other one way – the physical with the mental, making it an epiphenomenalist theory. In this essay…

Question 29

dualism plan

Answer 29

intro - dualism is wrong
descartes divisiblity argument
response - mind is divisible
problem 2 for substance dualism being interactionist - princess bohemia
response - chalmers argument for property dualism being epiphenomenolist can account for this
response - h30 argument
argument against epiphenomenalism - evolution