Minds and Bodies

Question 1

Define Consciousness

Answer 1

A state of being aware of internal and external stimuli

Question 2

Define “The Hard Problem of Consciousness”

Answer 2

It is the problem of explaining why we are conscious and not unconscious in any given stage and why their is something it is like for something to be conscious.

Question 3

Define Dualism

Answer 3

Dualism is the theory that the mind and body are separate. With the mind being distinct from the brain.

Question 4

Define Materialism

Answer 4

The mind and body are the same thing, because only physical things exist. We have a physical body of which the mind is just one aspect and it is contained in or is the brain.

Question 5

Define Epiphenomenalism

Answer 5

Mental events are caused by physical events in the brain that have no connection to external physical events.

Question 6

Define Qualia and give and example

Answer 6

The subjective experience gained from interaction that cannot be found in the brain/the unique characteristic of experience. Eg seeing the colour red.

Question 7

What is Descartes “Method of Doubt” and how does it work?

Answer 7

To question the most basic foundations of knowledge, if he should find any reason to not be completely certain of them then he should discard them entirely. It will be enough if in all of them even only some cause for doubt it found. If the foundations of his knowledge are found to be untrue they will undermine anything built upon them, so by targeting the most basic principles of his knowledge he can test all his beliefs and find true knowledge.

Question 8

What is Descartes position on the Mind/Body problem and why?

Answer 8

The body is not necessarily real because he only knows his body from his senses, which can deceive him so according to his method of doubt they are untrustworthy. The idea of soul is also compromised as it is connected to the body. It is through thought alone that he knows he exists and he knows it to be separate from the body because he is still sceptical about the validity of his body but because he thinks, he knows he exists and this is attributed to the mind. Meaning they are separate things and that he is sure that the mind exists while not sure the body does.

Question 9

What is the “Evil Demon” thought experiment and what is its purpose?

Answer 9

The Evil Demon is a thought experiment posed by Descartes that illustrates that he is vulnerable at any time to manipulation. As at any one time or at all times an evil demon could be systematically deceiving him through his perceptions. It purpose is to illustrate that all sense information is unreliable, even so far as the body. Illustrating the unreliability of the senses.

Question 10

What is Smarts position on the Mind/Body problem and why?

Answer 10

Smarts position is that the mind and body are the same thing. The brain and the mind are then synonymous. Sensation statements, that which we perceive from our senses, are actually just reports of a brain function. Meaning brain processes such as neurons firing, when reported, are reported as sensation statements. So then all experiences are really just brain processes. With our experience of consciousness being no different.

Question 11

To what extent can the mind be known by the self and others for both Smart and Descartes?

Answer 11

Mind is better known then the body for Descartes. We can only know it by ourselves others cant know it.
For Smart the mind can only be known in so well as the science of it allows. Because any experience of it is really a brain process and not a direct sensation.

Question 12

Where does thinking happen for Descartes?

Answer 12

The mind, which is a spiritual substance not physical like the brain.

Question 13

Define Monism

Answer 13

There is only 1 type of things in existence. Materialists and idealists are monosits.

Question 14

Explain the Wax Analogy and its purpose by Descartes

Answer 14

The Wax analogy reads: when we see wax in solid form and in liquid form we identify it as the same wax. Even though all of its physical aspects changed from its solid to its liquid from. Showing that it is not our senses that knows things. Furthermore it cannot be our imagination because as it would have to run through an innumerable amount of possibilities, with some of them unknown. So it must be the mind which the wax is perceived by and it must be some essence that only it can perceive that is makes it the same wax pre and post liquid state.
The purpose of this is to show that the mind knows the wax better than the senses, making the mind the superior knower and so the better known then the body. Because it determines the essence of things and he cannot be sure his body even exists.

Question 15

Explain Cogito Ergo Sum

Answer 15

I think therefore i am. This is the principle that if in fact Descartes was being deceived by an evil demon, the very act of being deceived in thought proves he exists at least in thought. Meaning that he exists as long as he is thinking, making him a “thinking thing”.

Question 16

Explain why we know the mind more then the body according to Descartes

Answer 16

We know the mind better then the body because: we cannot be sure if our body exists as our only source of information on it is our senses, which are unreliable. However we can be sure our mind exists because the very act of deceiving means that their is something that is thinking and this is the mind.
Also the mind can know objects better than the body, as the body can only identify physical aspects that could change, but the mind can determine the essence of a thing that is constant.

Question 17

Define Occums razor

Answer 17

The principle that unnecessary complications should be cut away from an idea or argument, and that in two contrasting arguments we should favour the one with the least unnecessary complications.

Question 18

Define nomological dangler and give an example

Answer 18

Something solitary that sits outside our contemporary ways of reasoning, an outlier in logic. Eg Dualism.

Question 19

What is the difference between “reporting” and “seeing” for Smart?

Answer 19

“Reports”, that which we perceive in our brain and consciousness of physical events, are not accurate with what we are “seeing” as the stimulus. Because all sensation statements/ reports are reports of brain processes, what is being seen or felt is not the after image/ pain itself but instead a sophisticated wince in reaction brought on by our sensation statement for that thing being one of a brain processes reacting to that thing.

Question 20

Why does Smart think the Brains and Sensations theory is better then Dualism?

Answer 20

The dualism theory is one big nonmological dangler in the eyes of smart, as at its very root: the idea that everything is not just physical is an unnecessary complication because its not true. So then when comparing it to the theory of Brain and Sensation Statements, this should be favoured because it has less/ no unnecessary complications and so is more likely.

Question 21

Objection to Smart: how can we be ignorant of our brains while knowing our physical processes well if they are the same thing? Respond.

Answer 21

Smart responds with counter examples: we may talk perfectly well of an after image we see while knowing nothing of it neurology behind it even though they are the same. We may refer to a flash of lightning while being ignorant of it being an electrical discharge even though they are the same thing. Showing that just because A=B, doesn’t mean we have to know A to know B. In fact we can know A without knowing B, but this doesn’t stop them from being the same.

Question 22

Objection to Smart: sensations cannot be the same as brain processes because they do not occupy the same space. Respond.

Answer 22

Smart responds that the sensation is not a brain process. It is the experience of having a sensation that is a brain process. For example; the after image itself is not a brain process, but the experience of it is because this is a report of something that is happening in the brain. (yellow is not a brain process, but the experience of yellow is because its happening in the brain)

Question 23

Objection to Smart: everything is only a contingent fact. It could in fact be that sensations do not equal brain processes. Respond.

Answer 23

Smart responds by admitting that we cannot say that having x sensation means we have x brain process. However this does not show that what we report is not a brain process. As the experience of the sensation and the sensation are different things. The meaning between the two differs but onto-logically they are the same.

Question 24

Objection to Smart: if sensations are brain processes then why cant we scientifically quantify sensations like we can brain processes? Respond.

Answer 24

Smart responds by stating that we will one day be able to. With the further development of technology in this area it is more likely then not we will be able to quantify these elements into physical constituents as we have with every other area like geology and biology. But until then, his idea is not a certainty but only an alternate hypothesis to dualism.

Question 25

Objection to Smart: what if everything is mental? Respond.

Answer 25

Smart responds to this idealist view in slight agreement. As knowledge of this cannot be settled a priori, and it could logically be otherwise. His own arguments are not meant to be definitive conclusions, but alternative hypothesises.