The problem of consciousness Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
1
Q

What is the mind brain problem?

A

issue of how the mind

is related to the brain

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What three main views are related to the mind-brain problem

A

dualism, materialism and functionalism

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What is meant by materialism?

A

The second approach states that the mind is nothing but a by-product of the biological processes taking place in a particular brain. This view is called materialism.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What is the functionalist view?

A

The third approach says that the mind is indeed realised in a brain, but that it could be copied to any other brain, just like information on a computer can be copied to other machines. This is the functionalist view.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What is meant by the mind?

A

aggregate of faculties humans (and animals) have to perceive, feel, think, remember and want

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Name two philosophers which subscribed to the idea of dualism

A

Plato and Descartes

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

What was Plato’s view on the soul?

A

Plato maintained that the soul exists before, and survives the body. Human souls were made of the leftovers of the soul of the cosmos and travelled between the cosmos and the human bodies they temporarily inhabited. Because human souls were part of the cosmos-soul, they had knowledge of the perfect realm that contained the eternal, ideal forms of which the worldly objects were but imperfect reflections filled with error. By focusing on the innate knowledge of their immortal soul, humans could get access to the true ideas.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What was Descartes’ view on the soul and how it was related to the body?

A

humans were composed of a divine soul in a sophisticated body (sometimes referred to as ‘the ghost in the machine’). The soul was immaterial and formed the thinking part of the person. Descartes believed that the soul brought divine information to humans and, therefore, that people had innate knowledge, which they could recover through deductive reasoning.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What is meant by cartesian dualism?

A

current-day philosophers use the term Cartesian dualism to refer to theories in which the mind is seen as radically different from the body and as independent of the biological processes in the brain. Dualism in philosophical writings does not make reference to the mind’s fate after the body’s death, however, though this issue is central to religious writings.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Why does dualism have an intuitive appeal according to the book? (2)

A

because it puts conscious information processing at the centre of our functioning and it gives us the feeling of being in control of our actions.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What is meant by our consciousness?

A

word referring to the private, first-person experiences an individual lives through; contains all the mental states
a person is aware of

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is meant by free will?

A

situation in which individuals can choose their course of action; choice is the outcome of an informed deliberation

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

According to Walyer what three conditions must be met before an action can be ascribed to free will

A

● The agent must have been able to do otherwise. Free will only exists when there is a choice.
● The act must originate in the agent, not in some external force.
● The act must be the outcome of rational deliberation (acts that are erratic and
unpredictable are not seen as free).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is meant by the interaction problem?

A

A first problem for dualism was how to explain the mechanisms by which an independent mind (or soul) can influence the body.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What other problems did Descartes and dualism face? (4)

A

The existence of unconscious control processes (mental functions outside of consciousness + sleep), The disappearance of mystery forces in the scientific world & how brain damage affected consciousness & the Causal closure problem

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What German mathematician and diplomat disagreed with Descartes and where did he disagree with him? (2)

A

Leibniz (1646–1716) thought that the human mind could not be limited to conscious thinking, because ‘there is in us an infinity of perceptions . . . of which we are unaware because the impressions are either too minute and too numerous, or else too unvarying, so that they are not sufficiently distinctive on their own’. Leibniz disagreed with Descartes that the universe could be thought of as a machine. Instead he compared it to a living organism. The building blocks were not material particles, but energy-laden and soul-invested units, which Leibniz called monads.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Leibniz made a distinction between four types of monads, name and describe these four types of Monads

A
  1. Simple monads formed the bodies of all matter (organic and inorganic). They had some type of unconscious and unorganised perception, and they were motivated by a tendency to keep in line with the existing, pre-established harmony of the universe.
  2. Sentient monads were present in all living organisms, but not in inorganic material. They had capacities for feeling pleasure and pain, and for the voluntary focusing of attention. However, they lacked the ability to reason about their experiences.
  3. Rational monads corresponded to the conscious minds of humans. They possessed the capacity of apperception, the faculty not only to perceive but also to reflect upon what is perceived.
  4. The supreme monad controlled and motivated all other monads. This in Leibniz’s eyes was the omniscient and omnipotent God of Christian religion.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What was apperception based on according to Leibniz?

A

Apperception according to Leibniz was not entirely based on empirical evidence, but also on innate truths. The latter could be inferred from the fact that humans sometimes felt absolutely sure about a phenomenon (e.g. a mathematical or geometric law). Such certainty could never be based on perception alone; it was innate knowledge demonstrated by perception.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

How are these monads related to our consciousness?

A

human consciousness was not aware of the activity of the simple monads and, to a large extent, of the sentient monads. Still, these monads could motivate human behaviour

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Influenced by Leibniz, who at some point also started to wonder how much wider human knowledge was than the part people were conscious of? How did he refer to these unconscious processes?

A

Kant thought of the unconscious representations as dark representations (‘dun- kele Vorstellungen’) and devoted a complete section to them in his 1798 book Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. At the same time, Kant seems to have been puzzled (bothered?) by the door to the ‘dark’ he had opened and he left the unconscious representations out of his ‘more serious’ philosophical writings, because he could not integrate them within his overall philosophical system trying to reconcile realism with idealism.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Another reason why dualism lost its appeal was that it needed the existence of an immaterial, mysterious, animistic ‘soul’. Explain why this was problematic for scientists given recent developments

A

Scientists had bad experiences with such entities, which to them looked more like relics from the pre-scientific world with its animistic explanations than building blocks of a sound scientific theory. There were a number of examples of such mysterious ‘substances’ that had been postulated in science before but which in the end turned out to be materialistic phenomena that could be measured and manipulated by the scientists.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Name two prime examples of such mysterious ‘substances’ that had been postulated in science before but which in the end turned out to be materialistic phenomena that could be measured and manipulated by the scientists.

A

The first substance was phlogiston. This had been invoked in the seventeenth century to explain why some materials easily caught fire whereas others did not catch fire at all. The idea was that flammable materials contained a substance, called phlogiston, which was released during burning. Materials without the substance were not combustible. Experimentation, however, called the phlogiston theory into question. For instance, it was found that materials sometimes weighed more after being burned than before. It was also found that fire depended on the availability of oxygen.Once the combustion processes were known, the phenomenon of fire was understood and could be controlled. As a result, fire lost its mystery.
The second mystery substance that in the end turned out not to exist was the vital force. This force had been postulated to explain why some organisms were living and others not. Like many other animistic explanations, the vital force stayed nearly unquestioned until the seventeenth century. A defining moment in its demise was the realisation that it was possible to make living (organic) matter out of non-living (inorganic) components. Another important insight was that all living things were composed of cells that grew out of previous cells. This discovery was made possible by the invention and optimisation of the microscope.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

what did the Canadian philosopher Paul Churchland (1981) claim to be true about consciousness?

A

For Churchland, consciousness and the associated opinions were examples of folk psychology.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

What is the view regarding free will according to Richard Dawkins (1976/2006)? Describe his arguments (3)

A

the evolutionary theory was misunderstood in the first century after its introduction by Darwin. Whereas everyone assumed natural selection was about the survival of individuals (in their offspring) and species, the selection actually concerns the survival of DNA molecules. Dawkins points out that the contribution of individuals to their offspring rapidly dilutes after a few generations, making it impossible that something ‘biological’ of an individual is preserved. Similarly, he points out that throughout history life forms have come and gone, to be replaced by others that were better adapted to the (changed) circumstances. So, species do not survive either. The only things that have remained constant throughout are the genes that make up the living organisms. They are the true survivors, and they have managed to mobilise a whole range of survival machines that keep them alive and enable them to multiply.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

Describe two issues facing materialism

A

Identity problem; the difficulty the materialistic theory of the mind–brain relationship has to explain how two events can be experienced as the same despite the fact that their realisation in the brain differs.

Nobody has a convincing idea of how the human mind could be a by-product of the biological processes in the brain.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

What attempt was made at solving the latter problem? (Nobody has a convincing idea of how the human mind could be a by-product of the biological processes in the brain.)

A

Researchers were convinced that if they built a brain-like computer they would automatically get an intelligent machine, returning a particular input into a desired output on the basis of self-learning. There was no need for them to define the meaning of the input or to detail the operations to be performed, however, the cybernetic attempts along these lines resulted in failure. At the same time, another type of machine turned out to be much more successful. This consisted of rather simple computers (Turing machines) that were able to store information in binary code (memory units turned on or off) and that could execute algorithms on this information on the basis of sequences of instructions given. In addition, the instructions could be run on each and every computer compatible with them, indicating that there was a distinction between the machine (the hardware) and the information processed by the machine (the software)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

Because humans using the materialistic approach were increasingly compared to robots, controlled by their biology, it was normal for philosophers of mind to keep a close eye on the developments in artificial intelligence. One particular finding in this discipline had far-reaching consequences for ideas about the human mind. What was this finding? (2)

A

Information can be thought of as a realm separate from the medium upon which it is realised. Whereas cybernetics at first tried to make individual machines function like human minds, in line with materialism, real advancement consisted of rather simple machines on which information could be manipulated in binary form. In addition, although this information had to be processed on a computer and, therefore, depended on the functioning of the machine, it could easily be copied to other computers or even to completely different devices

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
28
Q

The first outcome of the understanding that information forms a device-independent realm was that it provided an answer to which problem regarding mind-body?

A

The identity problem; because information in operational computers was independent of the precise ways in which it had been realised (as long as it retained the binary symbols and the Boolean transformations), the physical changes by which computers code zeros and ones and worked with them did not really matter. Similarly, the minute physiological changes that accompany a particular human experience may not be important, as long as they preserve the information code. The same information can be realised and communicated in multiple ways.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
29
Q

Name and describe the school of philosophy that this gave rise to

A

functionalism; in philosophy, view about the relationship between the mind and brain that considers the mind as a separate layer of information implemented on a Turing machine; predicts that the mind can be copied onto another Turing machine

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
30
Q

How were these philosophical functionalists similar to psychological functionalists around 1900?

A

Just as functionalists in psychology around 1900 studied the functions of the mind rather than the nature of the mind, so functionalists in philosophy from the 1970s onwards examined the functions of information, rather than the precise ways in which the information was realised.

To understand what hunger is, they argued, it is not necessary to know what neurophysiological mechanisms make the phenomenon possible, but what they do to the organism.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
31
Q

What was the point of the teleportation experiment?

A

illustrates the difference between functionalism on the one hand and Cartesian dualism and materialism on the other.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
32
Q

What position does the Canadian psychologist Keith Stanovich defend in his book “The robot’s rebellion: Finding meaning in the age of Darwin”?

A

That humans escaped the tyranny of the biological
make-up, because they assembled matter-independent information; In other words, the fact that humans can encode, store, retrieve and manipulate information enables them to pursue intentions that need not coincide with those of the genes.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
33
Q

Not everybody is convinced, however, that information is liberating humankind. How did Dawkins posit this?

A

According to him, DNA need not be the only replicator in the universe. There may be others, which also work on the principles of variation (the introduction of spontaneous small changes when existing material is copied), selection (of the changes that fit well within the environment) and replication (of the successful variations). Dawkins argues that the build-up of information by humans fulfils all the principles of Darwinism. A few variations find a storage facility and a way to get copied. During the copying small changes are introduced. Many of these changes are uninteresting and fail to be reproduced. However, the few ideas that fit well in the environment copy themselves copiously and spread throughout the territory. Dawkins calls the individual ideas that make up information and try to replicate themselves, memes.

Although Dawkins did not write this explicitly, the picture of memes he paints is not one of a medium that liberates people, but rather one of a medium that also uses humans as ‘survival machines’. So, it might be that humans are not only ‘programmed’ to spread genes, but also to spread information in the form of memes.

34
Q

What exactly is meant by a meme?

A

funy picher on instgram

information unit
proposed by Dawkins
that reproduces itself according to the principles of the evolutionary theory (variation, selection and replication)

35
Q

According to functionalism, what was psychologies role?

A

The functionalist framework agreed perfectly with cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology. Psychology’s task was not to understand how the brain functioned or how mental representations were implemented; this was the hardware side. Psychology’s challenge was to understand the software that runs on the human brain.

36
Q

Who was David Marr and what did he propose? (3)

A

Marr (1945–1980), a neuroscientist who developed one of the first computer models of human vision, argued that information processing could be studied at three levels. First, at the computational level researchers postulate ideas about how a system can generate output representations from input representations received. Next, at the algorithmic level, they try to specify the algorithms necessary to perform the processes proposed at the computational level. Finally, at the implementation level, they aim to make the algorithms work on a specific physical system.

37
Q

Which of these levels were psychologists concerned with?

A

Cognitive psychologists could easily identify themselves with researchers operating at Marr’s computational and algorithmic level (leaving the implementation level for the neuro-physiologists and the engineers).

38
Q

The clear separation between information processing and brain tissue was questioned anew by cognitive neuroscience. What did they claim?

A

Human information processing could be understood by examining the brain parts involved in the operations.

39
Q

How did functionalists argue against neuroscience and how is this supported? (2)

A

It was the equivalent of an engineer claiming that the operations of a software package could be understood by studying the computer parts involved in the execution of the program

They argued that cognitive neuroscience provides little more than nice pictures about correlations between brain activity and psychological experiences, despite the massive investments and the repeated promises of more profound impact. The fact that cognitive neuroscience has tremendously expanded since its beginnings in the 1990s, according to the critics, is not due to the theoretical progress made by the new approach but to the appeal pictures of brain activity have for humans (readers, researchers, reviewers, assessors). People tend to see pictures of brain activity as more informative than they really are.

40
Q

What four reasons did Beck (2010) give for the non-scientific appeal of brain images?

A
  1. Brain imaging pictures afford a simple message: brain area X is responsible for this particular complicated psychological or social phenomenon.
  2. Reductionist, biological explanations have extra appeal, because they seem to give a definite and scientific account (they address the basis of the behaviour). People have greater confidence in a biological marker of a behavioural phenomenon than in the phenomenon itself.
  3. Part of the appeal of biological explanations is that people tend to confuse them with innateness, thinking that brain activity is the outcome of fixed, innate wiring rather than the result of a learning process.
  4. Brain imaging pictures hide the complicated comparisons and statistical analyses needed to come to the image. They create an illusion of a direct snapshot of the brain in action.
41
Q

How else can brain images be misleading?

A

brain imaging research has recently been accused of too rapidly accepting associations between brain activity and psychological processing, leading to so-called voodoo correlations. Vul and colleagues (2009) showed that cognitive neuroscience studies of emotion, personality and social cognition frequently report correlations between brain activation and personality measures higher than can be expected on theoretical grounds, and they argued that these were due to statistical artefacts.

42
Q

What different levels are there to a reduction theory?

A

Higher-level theory (mental state)
‘Bridge laws’- statements linking concepts of the reduced theory to concepts of the reducing theory.
Lower-order theory (brain state)

43
Q

What is meant by type-type Identity?

A

the view that types of mental states are identical to types of brain states across individuals and time points. This view implies one-to-one mapping. If it is true, a full reduction of psychology to neuroscience is possible.

44
Q

What is the difference between reductionists and eliminists?

A

Reductionists want a one to one correspondence, eliminists want to eliminate the concept of brain states altogether

45
Q

How is a turing machine applicable to functionalism?

A

The Turing machine is multiple realisable and can implement a basic thought process. If these these thought processes are essentially computer programmes, then this should be possible to be implemented in a computer. The brain is therefore not essential.

46
Q

What is meant by the Turing test?

A

If a Turing test can think a little bit, then a very good Turing machine should be able to think as we do. If a Turing machine could behave in a way which is indistinguishable from a computer, then Turing claimed we would have to conclude that that computer has consciousness

47
Q

Explain the fading qualia thought experiment

A

What if you would replace neurons one by one with silicon chips (or to fix brain injury). Would you still have mental states and consciousness?

48
Q

Explain the Chinese room thought experiment

A

In this thought experiment you are literally a Turing machine. You are in a room and receive notes. You have a book that tells you what to respond. What you don’t know is that the symbols are Chinese phrases. So, you’re having a conversation in Chinese without you knowing it! Searle’s conclusion: no one here understands Chinese and no one has consciousness

49
Q

distinguish between the strong and weak AI theory

A
  • Strong theory states that AI can form a consciousness

- weak says that it can simulate it and that we can learn from it

50
Q

Name two or three thought experiments which demonstrate the problem of qualia

A

Brett, who sees an extra shade of red and Mary, the colour scientist in the dark room. Also what is it like to be a bat/ other person

51
Q

What is meant by the easy problem and the hard problem?

A

Many people think: the brain somehow produces experiences, But it is not at all clear how the existence of subjective experiences can or should follow from theories about the physical reality. David Chalmers points to this so-called hard problem: how is subjective experience possible at all? How and why do physical properties lead to subjective experiences? He argues that standard research only deals with the “easy problem”.One only investigates which brain processes are at the basis of which experiences. But the real mystery, the problem of consciousness -why do we have qualia at all -is not addressed

52
Q

What is meant by cognitive closure hypothesis?

A

A dog cannot learn pythagorean theorem no matter how hard it tries. Maybe the problem of consciousness is just too difficult for us

53
Q

What is meant by the term “determinism”?

A

The intuition that the physical state of the world at t fully determines the physical state at t+1, which implies there are no room for free will because actions are completely explained by the physical state.

54
Q

If we allow space for free will, which two actions are possible?

A

Rejecting determinism or argue that determinism is consistent with free will

55
Q

What do you get if you reject determinism? What problems arise with this?

A

Probabilities, however they do not help much in explaining free will. Exercising your will also presupposes, to a certain extent, determinism! If my intention only determines my behaviour with some probability, I don’t experience that as free will!

56
Q

What second intuition is mentioned in the lecture regarding free will and what implications does this have?

A

he physical state of the world at tfully determines the mental states in that world.
Conclusion: mental states are not independent causes. The “real cause” of your behavior is a physical state of your brain, which is just stuck in a causal chain

57
Q

Describe the experiment that Libet carried out

A

Hooked people up to EEG, told them to remember when they decided to press the button, then contrasted this with the action potential recorded.

58
Q

Name 4 ways in which free will can be ‘saved’

A
  • Criticize Libet’s experiments
  • Maintain that physics does not fully describe the world
  • Become and compatibilist (both free will and determinism)
  • Conceptualise free will differently
59
Q

Which british empiricist proposed the new materialistic view?

A

Hobbes

60
Q

Describe the two types of consciousness distinguished

A
  • Access consciousness = conscious information that can be reported, used for reasoning and acted upon
    intentionally.
  • Phenomenological consciousness = the fact that human experiences possess subjective qualities that seem
    to defy description: they have meaning that goes beyond formal report.
61
Q

Give two examples of studies showing unconscious processing

A

Marcel (cognitive processing): Participants had to decide whether a presented string if letters is a word or not. The targets were preceded with primes (semantic priming was used) that were presented long enough to be visible, or too short not to be visible. In both cases a strong priming effect was found.
-> cognitive processing could be unconscious as well

Wilson &Zajonc (emotional responses): Participants were asked to watch a screen and discern what was presented. Polygons were presented in too short a time to be seen . Participants could not indicate which polygon was seen, but more than chance preferred the one they had seen.
-> Emotional responses could be based on unconscious cognitive processing

62
Q

What is meant by sematic priming?

A

= experimental technique in which a prime and target are presented immediately after each other. Usually the target is recognized faster when it follows a semantically related prime than when it follows an unrelated prime: so the target word ‘boy’ would be recognized faster after the prime word ‘girl’ than after the prime word ‘goal’.

63
Q

what is meant by masked priming?

A

experimental technique to investigate unconscious information processing, consisting of briefly presenting a prime between a forward meaningless mask and a subsequent target, and examining the effect
of the prime on the processing of the target

64
Q

What was the symbol grounding problem for functionalism?

A

the finding that representations (symbols) used in computations require a reference to some external reality in order to get meaning. Digital computers can’t survive independently because they rely on humans for grounding and to remain functional in a changing environment.

65
Q

Describe what is meant by embodied cognition in functionalism

A

the conviction that the interactions between the human body and the environment form the grounding (meaning) of human cognition. This is suggested as a solution to the symbol grounding problem. Physiology, evolutionary history, practical activities and socio-cultural situatedness are sources of embodied information.

66
Q

Show how Milner demonstrated an implicit memory

A

An amnesiac patient HM was asked to copy a star while watching his hand in a mirror 3 days in a row. Even though he did not remember doing the task before, his performance improved every day.

67
Q

What did Wegnar propose about free will?

A

According to Wegner, our feelings of doing things is an illusion of conscious will. The human mind is programmed to attribute actions to its own initiative when 3 conditions are met

68
Q

What were the three conditions that had to be met for us to attribute an action to our own free will?

A

(1) A thought appears in consciousness prior to an action;
(2) the thought is consistent with the action, and;
(3) there is no salient alternative cause of the action.

69
Q

What is the global worspace model?

A

a model explaining the role of consciousness by analogy to a theatre: it is meant to make some information available to the whole brain (the play) so that the various background processes (costume preps, decors) can synchronise their functioning to what is going on centrally.

70
Q

How did Chalmers show the problem of phenominological consciousness?

A

Imagine there is a twin of ourselves in which the only difference is that it doesn’t have the same consciousness as us. It would respond in exactly the same way but lack the qualia that make up our phenomenal world. The fact that we can imagine this shows that our consciousness cannot be reduced to functionalism.

71
Q

Distinguish between type 1 and Type 2 thinking

A

Type 1 thinking = thinking that involves all types of information processing that do not require focused attention and that produce an output without any apparent effort or awareness. It is based on innate knowledge and knowledge acquired on the basis of associative learning (associations between all types of events).

Type 2 thinking = thinking that is controlled, serial and conscious and that allows us to go beyond what is physically present in the environment.

72
Q

Explaine how/ why there has been a focus on type 2 thinking in research

A

For a long time cognitive psychology was only interested in type 2 thinking: do people follow the rules of logic when they reason? It was concluded that without formal training people don’t reason like intuitive scientists, instead they are heuristic-based thinkers. Type 1 thinking was overlooked and considered the origin of some reasoning errors.

73
Q

Why is there a re-appreciation for type 1 thinking?

A

Recently, researchers started to think that automatic thinking isn’t always inferior to controlled thinking. Automatic evaluations can activate the wrong answer in artificial situations, but should be reliable in often- experienced everyday situations.

74
Q

What is the theory of unconscious thought?

A

a theory defending the superiority of type 1 thinking. It comes with 3 differences between conscious (2) and unconscious (1) thought

75
Q

What are these three differences between conscious and unconscious thought?

A

(1) Stimuli: 1 is completely determined by the stimuli, which automatically activate stored associations.
(2) Rules: 2 is able to follow strict rules, whereas 1 only results in a hunch.
(3) Capacity: 2 has low capacity, while 1 can consider a large number of simultaneous influences.

76
Q

Describe an experiment demonstrating unconscious thought

A

The theory of unconscious thought was tested in an experiment that presented participants with real life choices, like which car to buy. In the easy condition 4 attributes were given, while in the hard condition 12 attributes were given. It was found that participants made better decisions if they were allowed to think consciously about the easy choice, whether they performed better on the hard choices when using unconscious thought.

= For hard choices it may be good to let unconscious processing do its work.

77
Q

What is meant by identity theory?

A

That mental states are brain states

78
Q

Give three reasons why type type theory is unlikely

A

• Neural plasticity: the same mental functions can be performed in different ways and areas.
• Individual differences in physical makeup: brains may be quite heterogeneous.
• Content of mental states: mental states are often defined by their contents, which is very likely to be
encoded in many different ways.

79
Q

What does it mean to say that functionalism has a multiple realisability view of the brain?

A

the view that mental states have multiple ways of being physically realised. (often by their different functions in functionalism)

80
Q

What is meant by token-token identity theory?

A

Because of multiple realisability, type-type identity theory is rejected. Another explanation is token-token identity theory. This view states that mental states can be different brain states in different people. This means that we can’t have full-reductionism.