Week 1 - Introduction to Consciousness Flashcards
Reductionism:
the mind exists and is reducible to physical activity (ie. it is
nothing more than that activity)
Emergentism:
the mind exists and is the product of physical activity, but
behaves as if it were independent and follows its own general laws
Eliminative materialism:
the mind does not exist, consciousness does not
exist, only physical activity exists
EMERGENT MATERIALISM
• Mind emerges from neural activity only when that
activity becomes complex enough
Emergensism if for
Reductionism is for
Emergensism if for psychology
Reductionism is for neurology
ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM
- Patricia Churchland : conscious and mind represent a folk psychology that sciennce if trying ti fit its questions into.
- Neuroscience doesnt map these concepts our tho, we just looked for them.
Idealsim
- Subjective idealism
2. Transcendental idealism
- Subjective idealism
Phsyical world only exists to the extent of our perception
- goerge berkely (tree falls)
- the particaptory universe (john wheeler): form the univers of possibilities, we create a single reality though observations.
- Transcendental idealism
(Immanuel Kant): the physical world exists, but how it appears to us is not how things really are
Realism
- Niave realism : implicit belif by everyone that the worlds real
- Direct realism: we can accuratly percieve the world for what it is (jj. Gibson)
- Indirect realism: we CANT accuratly perceive the world, but good enough
Prumary consciousness
Percpetial exprriecnes (seeing, hearing, feeling, emtoions)
Secondary conscioussnes
Additional mental abilties whihc are constructed on the absis of those perceptions (reaosning, attention, volition)
he thought that only mammals and birds have some
degree of secondary consciousness
Gerald Edelman’s division;
Wheres the mind?
- Internalism.
2. Externalism
- Internalism.
The mind is the porduct of just thought or neural activity
- Externalism
The mind extends beyond the brain into rest of the body and the world
- extended mind (andy clarck): minds composed of tools
- embodied cognition: limitied version whihc only includes the body (no tools)
SU BSTANCE DUALISM
• Rene Descartes : the world is physical, extended and changing while the mind is non-physical, unextended and unchanging
- mind and brain interact at pineal gland
Problems with substance dualism
- Nothing special about pineal gland
2. How would ohsyical and non ohsyicla interact
EPIPHENOMENALISM
Mind is porduced by phsyical workings of the body, its a by product of phsyical mechanisms, (huxley)
- Mind = steam
- Body = train
- One way relationship
PANPSYCHISM
Mild” version: Any object can be conscious if it behaves in the right sort of way; any particle of matter or quanta of energy can contribute to consciousness if integrated into a conscious system
• “Extreme” version: there is a mental substance or field which fills the universe and interacts with matter universally
Integrated Information Theory
(Giulio Tononi): consciousness is the process of integrating information in a complex way which allows us to model the
world and our own internal states
Free will Three broad positions:
- Libertarianism: Yes, we can choose
- Determinism: No, we cannot choose
- Compatibilism: Determinism is true, but we can still choose
LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL
• Dualist versions:
We have free will because even if physics is deterministic, the
mind is not physical, and therefore isn’t bound by the same laws
LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL
Materialist versions:
We have free will because physics is indeterminate
DETERMINISM
- Nothing in universe is uncaused, everything has a cuase.
- nothing is truly spontaneous
COMPATIBILISM
Artuhur Schopenhauer: ppl can will what they do but not will what they will
- control actions but nit desires and feelings.
- danial dennet : It doesn’t matter if determinism is true or false, because either way we have the kind of free will that matters
