Mind and Brain: Consciousness and Physicalism

Comprehensive practice questions and answers covering consciousness, the mind-body problem, and various philosophical positions like dualism, physicalism, and emergentism.

How is consciousness defined according to the philosophical text?

The subjective experience an individual is presently having, which separates them from everyone else.

What is the difference between being conscious and being self-conscious?

One is conscious if they have subjective experiences, such as a dog feeling the warm sun, but they are self-conscious only if they are reflecting on the fact that they are having that experience.

What is the 'one-phoneme difference' between the words 'conscious' and 'conscience' as described in the text?

The addition of an 'n' at the end of conscience: conscious is pronounced (kahn'-shuhs) and conscience is (kahn'-shuhns).

How does the philosophical definition of 'unconscious' differ from the everyday behavioral usage?

In everyday use, someone is unconscious if they are unresponsive; philosophically, a dreaming person is in a conscious state because there is 'something it is like' to experience the dream.

According to the text, why is rational thought not a sufficient condition for consciousness?

Because conscious experiences, such as a fish feeling pain or a person experiencing a vague sense of pleasure, can exist without conceptual representations or true/false propositions about the world.

What is 'Dualism'?

The belief that there are two fundamental kinds of thing in the world: mind and matter, where matter is not mental and the mind is not material.

What is 'Physicalism' (or Materialism)?

The view that there is one fundamental kind of thing in the world, physical stuff, and that if minds exist, they are material objects.

What view did George Berkeley hold regarding the nature of the world?

Idealism, the view that there is only one fundamental kind of thing, which is mind, and that matter only exists insofar as it is consciously experienced.

What is 'Panpsychism'?

The view that everything has a degree of consciousness because physical and mental are two ways of looking at the same substance, which exists even at the sub-atomic level.

What are the four components of Rene Descartes's simplified argument for dualism?

(1) I cannot conceive of myself without a mind. (2) I can conceive of myself with a different body. (3) Something is essential if and only if I cannot conceive of myself without it. (C) I am essentially a mind, not a body.

What is the 'problem of identification' for substance dualism?

The difficulty of knowing how to associate a specific immaterial mind with a particular physical body over time without relying on material evidence.

How is Ockham's Razor used to support Physicalism?

It argues that if physical things can explain all observed phenomena, it is unnecessarily extravagant to hypothesize the existence of immaterial minds.

What is the 'argument from neural dependence'?

The observation that conscious experiences are closely tied to neurological activity, evidenced by how physical substances like alcohol, caffeine, or medication alter one's mental state.

What is Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's 'argument from causal dependence' against dualism?

If the mind and body are wholly distinct and independent, it is impossible to explain how they can cause each other to act, such as a mind causing a hand to move.

What is Hempel's Dilemma as discussed by Alyssa Ney?

If physicalism is defined by current physics, it is likely false; if defined by future completed physics, it might trivialized by being compatible with mental entities.

What is Thomas Nagel's central argument in 'What is it Like to be a Bat?'?

He argues that physical information is inadequate to capture the subjective qualitative state of a bat's consciousness, such as perceiving the world through echolocation.

What is Frank Jackson's 'Knowledge Argument' involving Mary the color scientist?

The argument that because Mary learns what it is like to see red only after leaving her black and white room, her previous complete physical knowledge of color was incomplete, meaning physicalism is false.

What is the concept of 'Supervenience' in physicalism?

The claim that there is no logical possibility of a difference in conscious state without a corresponding difference in brain state.

What is a 'philosophical zombie' according to David Chalmers?

A creature that is molecule-for-molecule identical to a human but lacks any conscious experience or 'phenomenal feel' entirely.

How does Eliminativist Physicalism treat the concept of consciousness?

It claims that 'folk psychology' concepts like beliefs and feelings are mistaken and should be replaced entirely by scientific descriptions of brain states.

What is 'Non-Reductive Physicalism'?

The view that while mental concepts are irreducible to physical concepts, mental states are in fact identical to particular physical events in the brain.

What is 'Emergentist Dualism'?

The view that consciousness arises from the physical brain and depends on it, but has an essential nature that is non-physical and 'over and above' its physical parts.

How does a physicalist respond to the conceivability of zombies using the water/$H_2O$ analogy?

They argue that just as it was once conceivable that water was not $H_2O$ before modern chemistry, zombies are conceivable only because we lack a full physical understanding, not because they are logically possible.

What is the difference between 'type' and 'token' states in the philosophy of mind?

A 'type' is a general category or property (e.g., 'pain'), whereas a 'token' is a particular, specific instance of that state at a given time in a specific person.