smart

aim

Sensations are nothing over and above brain processes.

In other words, when you have a sensation (e.g., pain), that experience just is a physical process in your brain. Saying “I have a pain” and “My C-fibers are firing” describe the same event, just in different ways.

identity is not correlation

• Smart stresses that identity is stronger than correlation.

• Saying “lightning = electrical discharge” is an identity, not just a correlation.

Similarly, “sensation = brain process” — not merely that one causes the other.

science ex: “Water = H₂O”

• “Morning star = evening star = Venus”

Likewise, neuroscience may show that “sensation = brain process.”

The “Topic-Neutral Analysis”

• Smart argues that statements about sensations can be analyzed in topic-neutral terms — i.e., without committing to a non-physical mind.

• For example:

  • Saying “I feel a yellowish-orange after-image” is just saying “Something is going on in me that is like what happens when I actually see an orange.”

This doesn’t require positing a non-physical image; it’s just describing the way it feels.

raw feel obj

• Sensations have a “raw feel” (qualia) that brain processes lack.

• Response: This objection confuses the way we talk about sensations with what they really are

  • Just as “lightning” and “electrical discharge” sound different but refer to the same thing, so do “pain” and “C-fiber firing.”

The seeming difference is linguistic, not ontological.

pain obj

• You can imagine having pain without thinking of your brain.

• Response: True, but you can imagine seeing lightning without thinking of electricity. That doesn’t disprove the identity.

subjective obj

• Identity theory can’t explain the subjective aspect of experience.

• Response: Science often revises how things seem — we can learn that heat = molecular motion even though they don’t “feel” the same.

Occam’s Razor

• The simplest explanation is best.

• Dualism multiplies entities (mental substances) unnecessarily.

We can explain all phenomena with physical laws.

Nomological Danglers:

• If mental events are non-physical, they “dangle” outside the physical law system.

Identity theory eliminates these “danglers” by bringing mental events into the physical realm.