Mind and Body: Reductive Accounts of the Mind: Identity Theory Flashcards
explain hard/type identity theory
any given type of mental state is equal to a given type of brain state.
whereever there is h2o there is water, wherever there is water there is h2o
10 people go to the dentisist with tooth ache each will be epxeriencing the same type of mental event which is identical to the physical process- C fibres firing in the brain
this renders the mind as unmisterious
explain token/soft identity theory
each insidence of mental state (such as pain) is also an instance of a physical state of some type(including c-firbre firing but also physical states of being which may not posses c-fibres)
my pain and your pain are tokens of the mental state of feeling pain and the physical porcess occuring in me and the physical process occuiring in you are tokens of the ohysical porcess associated with pain
h2o equals lake, stream, pond
the deveopement of identity theory
J.J.C.Smart
intially attracted to logical behaviourism
orginally focused heavily upon consious states which are resistant to behaviour anaylisis such as sensations.
scince cannot account for them
therefore where they are concered-
in favour of Occam’s razor-the simplest should be adopted
there is only 1 realm and that is the physical
Armstrong: mentality as the inner cause of external behaviour-the definitive feature of mental states is therefore the casual role they play.
Key features of identity theory
- straightforward. Centeral claim can be simply stated: mental states/events are identical with physical-chemical states of, or porcesses in, the brain.
- ontology to just one realsm- only the physical
- it is an emperical theory. Bleives scinetofic research will prove it. So idenetity between mental and physical although strict is contingent. Determining which physical and which mental connect can only be leanr a posterirori
- doesn’t comprise of strict analytic reductions
early objections to idenity theory
violation with leibniz’s law however smart argues against them
we have direct knowldge of our consious mental states however often reamining somewhat ignorant of the physical processes-seems like we have many mental porcesses which physcially we do not and vice versa
brain is physical and in accordance with the laws of physics however can the same be said for a thought-my sensations are private
Leibniz’s law is an objection to identity theory. Leibniz’s law is that in order for two things to be the same they must share the same attributes and if they do not they are different. Thanks to developments in neuroscience we can now see a visual representation of our thought process, making them physical and therefore distinct from our private mental states. However Smart suggests that we can have direct knowledge of our conscious mental states and yet remaining somewhat ignorant of physical process behind them. This belief is furthered by the analogy of the illiterate peasant. An “illiterate peasant” may be able to describe how they are feeling but would not be expected to explain the physical process behind it.
individual differences
There are also more serious objections to type identity theory. Firstly, there is the question of is it possible to identify mental states of the same type. For example my thought of “salt and vinegar are the best crisps” isn’t necessarily the same as your thought that “salt and vinegar are the best crisps”, my thought may be based on just one brand of crisps whilst your’s my include many different types. Therefore can the two be regarded as the same kind of thought? Identity theory doesn’t appear to leave enough scope for individual perspectives, which make up a huge part of our day to day lives. Research demonstrates that if one region of the brain is damaged another part will take over it’s role, this demonstrates that the mental states cannot be identical to the physical.
Although these arguments have been shown to damage type identity theory, token identity theory is left undamaged. The problem of crisp flavour is simply due to two different tokens of the same thought. This highlights why token identity theory is dubbed the more plausible of the two as it allows individualism.
multiple realisations
Because of the scope for individual thoughts/tokens token theory opens up other species as existing in such a way too. For example hunger, it is a universal across all forms of living things and although type identity theory would make any connection between the experience of a human and a tiger in regards to hunger impossible because of the fundamental differences between the two, type identity theory allows the two to both experience hunger.
very damaing to type
irreducibilty of consciousness
A third objection is that conscious mental states are entirely subjective to their beholder and their experiences/circumstance. Such as the example of Mary, she has been trapped in a black and white room for her entire life but is very knowledgeable about the physical nature of the outside world (colours ect). And although she is knowledgeable about colours she is unable to deduce from physical information what it is like to see red. This is because she lacks the quantative experience of seeing colour. Therefore the subjective-ness of seeing colour cannot be deduced to the physical constituents and theory.
conceivability arguement
Chalmers offers another criticism of identity theory. Firstly, why should physical processes be accompanied by conscious experiences at all? In his argument he considers the concept that in Zombie world beings would hold a physical identity but lack the conscious experience. Chalmers’s argues that because such a world is conceivable it must therefore be metaphysically possible. But materialists would respond to his argument by highlighting that just because something is conceivable doesn’t make it metaphysically possible.
are the proposed identites between mental states and ohysical states contingent?
the identoties between mental states and physical states are contingent
first female prime minister was margaet thatcher is non-rigid designator
margartet thatcher is a rigid designator-must refer to a woman
some things are set
