property Flashcards
intentionality
mental states such as beliefs fears and hopes are about something
it is not possible simply to believe fear or hope you must believe fear or hope something
eg i may believe that is is going to rain #my belief in a sense points to or is about the rain
qualia
certain mental state have a particular quality or feel
for person experiencing it there is a certain way ti feels to taste a pineapple or see a red poppy or hear a trumpet playing
these feelings are called phenomenal properties or qualia
property summary
claims that the mind is not distinct substance from the body but that it is a property of the brain. according to this view the mind cant exist on its own because it depends on the brain in the same way that wetness depends on water, however what makes this a dualist view is that mental properties are non physical so they cant be reduced to physical states and processes
philso zombies
p1 physicalism claims that the consciousness is ultimately physical in nature
conc1 so if physicalism is true then any possible world which is identical to the actual world must contain consciousnesses in other words a zombie world would be metaphysically impossible
p2 but we can concieve of a world that is physically identical to this one but in which there is no conscious experience
p3 what is conceievable is metaphysically possible
c2 therefore a zombie world must be metaphyscailly possibel after all
c3 therefore physicalism is false
response
zombie world is not conceivable
we had enough physical knowledge we would be able to understand what we currently call ‘qualia’ in purely physical terms
the only reason zombies seem conceivable is because we are confused or missing some important information. The conceivability of a physical duplicate without qualia is just an illusion
once we understand that qualia are, in fact, just physical things, then it becomes inconceivable to imagine a physically identical being that lacks these physical features. Imagining a philosophical zombie would be like saying “imagine something that is physically identical but that isn’t physically identical” – it would be a contradiction, and contradictions aren’t conceivable
Once we understand that qualia = a physical thing, it becomes inconceivable for two physically identical beings not to have identical qualia, and so the zombie argument fails to prove property dualism.
what is conceivable need not be metaphysically possible
It seems conceivable, for example, that water could be something other than H2O because a statement like “water is H3O” is not obviously contradictory in the same way “a triangle has 4-sides” is contradictory.
however given that water is h20 there is no possible wolrd in which the stuff composed of h20 moleculars is not water. what is conceivable therefore is not necessarily metaphysically possible
we can conceive of functioning physical duplicates of human beings without consciousness. but what if the consciousness is something to do with teh physcial.
there cant be a possible wolrd in which the physcail duplicates of a humam being lack consciousness.
if phenomenal properties (qualia) are essential properties of some physical things, then it’s not metaphysically possible for the same physical thing to have different phenomenal properties.
what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world
there are various possibilities are metaphysically possible but does it help wokring out what the actual world is
water argiument
water is h20 there is no other world where water is not h20
mary argument
p1 mary knows everything there is to know about the physical processes involved in colour vision
p2 but she learns something new when she experiences colour vision herself
c1 therefore there is more to know about colour visions than whatis given in a complete physical account of it
c2 so physicalism is false
acquaintance knowledge response
equivocates knowledge
p1 propositional
p2 acquaintance
she learns acquaintance knowledge not new facts
ablitiy knowkldhe
equivocates knowledge with propositional and ability
new/ old facts
same knowledge just presented in different ways
using phenomenal concepts
