Intro to Cog Sci

intentional stance

strategy of treating something as a rational agent with beliefs, desires, and goals in order to explain and predict what it will do

solipsism

philosophical idea that only one’s mind is certain to exist

animism

the idea that each moving thing has a mind or soul

intentional systems

all and only those entities whose behaviour is predictable/explicable from the intentional stance

autonoetic consciousness

the idea that one can understand themselves as a “self” and therefore they can think about themselves in a detached fashion, considering how they may act in the future and reflecting on what they did in the past

anthropodenial

the a priori rejection of shared characteristics between humans and animals

dualism

the idea that mind and matter belong to fundamentally different categories of reality

physicalism

the view that minds are part of the physical universe rather than immaterial or supernatural additions to it

reductionism

idea that phenomenon described at one level of description can be explained in terms of processes at a more basic level

mind-brain identity theory

states that a mental state and the corresponding state of the brain are the same event described by different levels of analysis

behaviourism

idea that the mind is understood in terms of one’s behaviour

numerical identity

neural processes a neurosurgeon might see are one and the same thing as one’s experience of pain

Capgras syndrome

rare psychogical and neurological disorder where a person firmly believes that a close relative or friend has been replaced by an impostor

emergentism

idea that emergent properties arise from the organisation and interaction of many parts, even though no individual part possesses the property on its own

eliminativism

idea that current psychological categories may not map neatly onto states of the brain, but they draw almost the opposite conclusion

multiple realizability

idea that the same higher level-state can be instatiated by different physical systems

functionalism

idea that a mental state is defined by the role it plays within a larger system