PHIL 329 Exam 1 — Minds, Machines and Persons

Physicalism

Theres nothing to the world over and above the physical; a complete physical description would be a complete description of reality.

Dualism

The mental is something over and above the physical; a full physical description would not be a full description of reality.

Substance dualism

The mind is a nonphysical thinking substance while the body is a physical extended substance.

Mind/brain identity theory

Mental states and properties are literally states and properties of physical brains.

Meditation I

Descartes uses radical doubt to discard anything that could possibly be mistaken, including sense experience and the apparent external world.

Dream argument

The possibility that current experiences could be dreams gives Descartes reason to doubt ordinary sensory beliefs.

Evil deceiver possibility

Descartes imagines a powerful deceiver capable of making even seemingly obvious beliefs mistaken.

Cogito

"I think, therefore I am"; Descartes' first unshakeable certainty.

Cogito conclusion

Descartes cannot falsely believe that he exists while he is thinking.

Thinking thing

What Descartes initially knows himself to be after the Cogito; something whose essential activity is thought.

Descartes conceivability argument

If Descartes can clearly conceive his mind existing without his body, then it is possible for the mind to exist without the body; therefore mind and body are not identical.

Conceivable → possible bridge

The premise that whatever is genuinely conceivable is metaphysically possible.

Descartes divisibility argument

The body is divisible while the mind is supposedly indivisible; because they differ in a property, they cannot be identical.

Leibniz's Law

If X and Y are identical, they must share all the same properties; if one has a property the other lacks, they are not identical.

Necessary truth

A truth that could not have been otherwise.

Contingent truth

A truth that could have been otherwise.

A priori

Knowable through reasoning independently of empirical observation.

A posteriori

Known through experience, observation, or scientific discovery.

Elisabeth argument

Physical motion was understood as depending on pushing, contact, shape, and extension; a nonphysical mind has no extension, so it is unclear how it could physically move a body.

Elisabeth's 1643 physics premise

The premise that motion depends on how much something is pushed, how it is pushed, and the shape or surface of what pushes it; the packet notes that modern physics would not accept this as a complete account of physical causation.

Mind-body interaction problem

The problem of explaining how a nonphysical mind could causally affect a physical body.

Pairing problem

Even if nonphysical minds can affect bodies, what explains why one particular mind causally interacts with this particular body rather than another one?

Causal closure of the physical

The idea that physical events have sufficient physical causes.

Overdetermination

An effect has more than one independently sufficient cause.

Causal exclusion argument

If a physical event already has a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental event is also claimed to cause it, the mental cause appears excluded unless the event is systematically overdetermined.

Interactionism

Mental events cause physical events and physical events cause mental events.

Epiphenomenalism

Physical events cause mental events, but mental events do not cause physical events.

Parallelism

Mental and physical events systematically correspond without directly causing one another.

Descartes response to Elisabeth

Descartes says mind, body, and the mind-body union involve different basic notions; understanding mind-body interaction should not simply copy the model of body-body pushing.

Body basic notion

Extension.

Mind basic notion

Thought.

Mind-body union basic notion

The union of mind and body is treated by Descartes as its own basic notion rather than reducible to extension or thought alone.

Ryle's Official Doctrine

The Cartesian picture according to which a person consists of a physical body plus a separate nonphysical mind.

Ghost in the Machine

Ryle's deliberately mocking name for the Cartesian Official Doctrine.

Category mistake

Treating something as if it belongs to the wrong logical category or type.

University category-mistake example

After being shown classrooms, libraries, dorms, and offices, asking where the university is as though it must be one additional building.

Ryle's attack on Cartesianism

The mind should not be treated as an additional ghostly object existing alongside the body; doing so commits a category mistake.

Disposition

A tendency to respond in certain ways under certain conditions, even when the response is not currently occurring.

Behaviorism

The general approach of understanding mental states through behavior or behavioral dispositions rather than as private inner substances.

Analytical behaviorism

The view that the meanings of mental-state terms can be analyzed in behavioral or dispositional terms.

Methodological behaviorism

A scientific methodology that focuses psychology on publicly observable behavior.

Single-track disposition

A simple disposition connecting one circumstance with one characteristic response.

Multi-track disposition

A disposition with many possible manifestations across many different circumstances.

Ryle multi-track point

Mental dispositions are not simple one-circumstance → one-response rules; the same mental state can manifest in many different ways depending on the situation.

Pain = screaming caricature

A simplistic behavioral analysis Ryle rejects because pain-related dispositions are multi-track rather than one fixed response.

One-to-many behavior problem

One mental state can produce many different behaviors depending on other circumstances and mental states.

Many-to-one behavior problem

The same outward behavior can arise from many different mental states.

Behaviorism circularity problem

Attempts to define one mental state behaviorally often require mentioning other mental states, producing circular or recursive definitions.

Epistemology

Questions about how we know something.

Metaphysics

Questions about what something fundamentally is.

Smart identity theory

Sensations and other mental states are literally brain processes.

Smart identity claim

Sensation = brain process is meant as strict numerical identity, not merely correlation or causation.

Qualitative identity

Two distinct things share the same or similar qualities, as when two laptops are called identical models.

Numerical identity

Two descriptions pick out literally one and the same thing.

Identical laptops example

"We bought identical laptops" expresses qualitative similarity, not the numerical identity Smart means when he says sensations are brain processes.

Lightning identity

Lightning = electrical discharge; an example of an identity discovered empirically.

Water identity

Water = H₂O; an empirically discovered identity.

Morning Star / Evening Star identity

The Morning Star = the Evening Star; two different descriptions were discovered to refer to the same object, Venus.

Discovered identity

An identity that is true even though people can understand the two descriptions before learning that they refer to the same thing.

Smart semantic response

Sensation language and brain-process language can have different meanings while still referring to the same thing.

Smart Occam motivation

If brain science can explain behavior and experience without adding separate nonphysical entities, identity theory gives a simpler ontology.

After-image objection

An after-image can seem yellow or orange while a brain process is not literally yellow or orange, apparently violating Leibniz's Law.

Smart response to after-image objection

Smart identifies the experience of seeming to see the colored after-image with a brain process; he does not claim that a yellow-orange object literally exists in the brain.

Privacy objection

Sensations seem privately accessible while brain processes are publicly observable, suggesting they are different.

Smart response to privacy objection

Different ways of knowing or accessing something do not by themselves prove that two different things exist.

Intentional-context problem

Properties involving what someone believes, knows, or thinks about an object cannot always be substituted straightforwardly into Leibniz's Law.

Clark Kent / Superman lesson

A person can know something about Clark Kent without knowing the same thing about Superman even though they are numerically identical, showing that knowledge descriptions can mislead identity arguments.

Conceivability objection to identity theory

If a sensation without the corresponding brain state seems conceivable, one might argue that it is possible and therefore sensation and brain state are not identical.

Pryor amnesiac professor example

An amnesiac Jim Pryor can coherently imagine a situation in which he exists and Jim Pryor does not, even though he is Jim Pryor.

Pryor example lesson

Someone can conceive a scenario that is metaphysically impossible, so conceivability does not automatically guarantee possibility.

Functionalism

A mental state is defined by its functional or causal role rather than by the exact material that realizes it.

Functional role

A state's network of causal connections to inputs, other internal or mental states, and outputs or behavior.

Functionalism input

Environmental or bodily conditions that causally produce or influence a functional state.

Functionalism internal-state relation

How a mental state causally interacts with other beliefs, desires, perceptions, emotions, or internal states.

Functionalism output

The behavior or other effects that a mental state tends to produce.

Multiple realizability

The same mental state or functional role can be realized by different physical materials or systems.

Functionalism vs identity theory

Identity theory ties mental-state types to particular physical brain-state types, while functionalism allows the same mental role to be realized in different physical systems.

Functionalism vs behaviorism

Functionalism allows internal states and causal relations among mental states rather than analyzing everything purely in terms of outward behavior.

Gold example

Being gold depends on physical composition, specifically atomic number 79.

Mousetrap example

Being a mousetrap depends primarily on what the object does or its function, not on one particular material composition.

Gold vs mousetrap contrast

Gold illustrates composition-based classification; mousetrap illustrates function-based classification.

Egg-protector example

What makes something an egg protector is whether it performs the protective function, not what material it is made from.

Coke-machine example

A machine's internal states can be characterized by how inputs lead to outputs and transitions to other states.

Eiffel Tower coin-press example

A pressed Euro costs two Euros; after inserting one one-Euro coin, nothing is dispensed and the machine moves into a one-Euro-credit state while waiting for more input.

Machine table

A rule table specifying how a current state plus an input determines an output and a next state.

Machine-table functionalism

The proposal that mental systems can be characterized by state-transition rules similar to those of a machine table.

Total state

A machine-table state representing the system's entire condition at a given moment.

Total-state problem

If mental machine-table states represent complete mental conditions, two people who are both in pain may still fail to share the same total state because all their other beliefs, desires, moods, and sensations differ.

Ramsification

Defining a network of interrelated states all at once through their causal relations rather than defining each term independently.

Ramsification purpose

It allows functionalism to define mental states that depend on relations to other mental states without falling into simple circular definitions.

Belief-desire interaction

Behavior normally results from combinations of mental states; for example, believing it is raining plus wanting to stay dry may lead to taking an umbrella.

Functionalism and physicalism

Functionalism is not by definition physicalism because it defines mental states by functional role rather than specifying that only one kind of physical material can realize them.

Qualia

The what-it's-like or felt properties of experience; how an experience feels from the inside.

Phenomenal character

The subjective qualitative feel of an experience.

Nagel bat argument

Objective information about a bat does not automatically provide knowledge of what it is like from the bat's first-person point of view.

Nagel point

There is a first-person or subjective aspect of experience that may not be captured simply by objective description.

Inverted qualia

Two systems have the same functional organization and outward behavior but different qualitative experiences.

Absent qualia

A system has the same functional organization and behavior as a conscious system but has no qualitative experience at all.

Inverted-qualia objection to functionalism

If the same functional organization can accompany different qualia, functional role alone may not completely determine phenomenal experience.

Absent-qualia objection to functionalism

If the same functional organization is possible without any qualia, functional role alone may not be sufficient for conscious experience.