PHIL 2502 Test #2

What is Physicalism?

All that exists in the world are physical phenomena, and therefore mental phenomena are “nothing over and above” physical phenomena.

What is the Mind-Body Problem?

The challenge of explaining the relationship between mental phenomena and physical phenomena.

What is Nagel’s definition of Consciousness?

An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism.

What is Reductionism?

The view that it is possible to explain the subjective character of consciousness entirely in terms of more basic neurophysiological or functional properties (objective vs. subjective description).

How does Nagel respond to Reductionism?

He argues that you can’t do this with something that is essentially a subjective phenomenon.

What is Nagel’s example of what it is like to be a Bat?

1. There is something it is like to be a bat.

2. Most bats perceive their environments via echolocation.

3. But, bat echolocation is so radically different from any form of perception that humans possess that it suggests that we cannot know what it is like to be a bat.

Why is it not enough to imagine what it is like to be a Bat?

Because we want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, not a human to be a bat

How does Nagel explain our challenge of understanding what it is like to be a Bat?

Facts about what it is like to be a bat embody a particular point of view (Nagel calls it subjective point of view) and they are accessible only from that one point of view (accessible to entities of the same type).

What does it mean for two things to be the same Type?

A is sufficiently similar to B.

What type of facts does Physicalism concern?

Objective facts, facts that can be observed and understood from many points of view.

How does Nagel argue against Physicalism?

It seems like conscious experience of a specific type cannot be accessed from multiple points of view, and therefore is not objective. Thus, we do not know how to access the facts of subjective experience from facts about the physical world.

What is a Qualia Freak (Frank Jackson)?

Someone who rejects Physicalism because it cannot explain Qualia

What is the Knowledge Argument?

An argument against physicalism, that is intuitively obvious. For example, nothing of a physical sort captures the smell of a rose, and thus Physicalism is false.

What is the Fred the Super Colour Senser thought experiment?

1. Fred has better colour vision than anyone else on record

2. He sees two colours where we see one, such as two different colours of the type “red”

3. He has created his own labels for the different colours he sees such as red1 and red2

What is Frank Jackson’s conclusion regarding Fred?

1. No amount of physical information will allow us to know what Fred’s experience is like when he sees the extra colour of red.

2. Therefore, knowing all the physical facts is not knowing all the facts. Thus, Physicalism must be leaving something out.

What is the Mary the Super Neuroscientist thought experiment?

1. Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor.

2. She specialises in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about the experience of colour vision.

3. “What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a colour television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?”

What is Frank Jackson’s conclusion regarding Mary?

1. It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it.

2. Thus it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete.

3. But she had all the physical information, and thus something was left out.

4. Therefore, Physicalism is false.

What do skeptics say about Frank Jackson’s conclusion that Physicalism is false?

Some people may reject Jackson’s conclusion that facts about qualia are not physical facts because it would seem to imply a version of epiphenomenalism (the view that qualia have no causal influence on the physical world).

What is the first rejection to qualia epiphenomenalism?

The hurtfulness of pain seems like the obvious cause of subsequent pain behaviours (e.g., saying “ouch!”).

What is Frank Jackson’s reply to the first rejection to qualia epiphenomenalism?

Both the hurtfulness of pain and the pain behaviours may have an underlying common cause (e.g., neural events in the brain).

What is the second rejection to qualia epiphenomenalism?

It’s reasonable to assume that we evolved to have qualia. But if so, then they should be conducive to our survival. And if they are epiphenomenal, then they are not conducive to our survival.

What is Frank Jackson’s reply to the second rejection to qualia epiphenomenalism?

Qualia may simply be by-products of brain processes that are themselves conducive to survival