Philosophy of Psychology Week 2

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Philosophy of Psychology Week 2

• First hour
• More organization
• Recap of Descartes and Huxley
• Second hour
• Summary of James
• Third hour
• Team exercise
• More questions

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Descartes (Recap)
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Descartes' automaton theory (AT)

• The theory non-human animals are mere automata
  (machines) without minds, souls, or reason.
• mind soul the faculty of reason
• ... we shall be forced to conclude, that we know
  of the existence in them animals of no other
  principle of motion than the disposition of their
  organs and the continual affluence of animal
  spirits ... (from the Reponses excerpt)

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Descartes' argument for AT

• The difference between humans and other animals
  human are capable of Reason. (P1)
• Faculties other than Reason are based in
  mechanisms. (P2)
• Passions, reflexes, and homeostatic processes are
  mechanical.
• So non-human animals are automata.
• Further, automata have no minds, because
• Mind is not physical. (P3)

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Why the difference is Reason (P1)

• P1 The difference between humans and other
  animals human are capable of Reason.
• Two features distinguish humans from other
  animals
• The complexity and versatility of human speech
• The adaptability of human behaviour
• This is not a difference in degree. It requires a
  special faculty of Reason (minds).
• See excerpt from the Discourse.

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Why mechanism (P2)

• P2 Faculties other than Reason are based in
  mechanisms.
• Progress of neurological research.
• The example of hydraulic and spring-based
  automata.
• Both excerpts are relevant, as well as the
  background discussion in Huxley's essay.

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Why mind/reason is not physical (P3)

• P3 Mind is not physical.
• Descartes can't imagine the power of computers.
  (in the Discourse)
• Also, the argument from disembodiment in
  Meditations on First Philosophy.

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Huxley (Recap)
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The frog

• The anterior division (AD) of the brain is the
  organ of consciousness.
• What does he mean by consciousness? Mind?
  Conscious rational thought?
• Some complex purposive actions in frogs can be
  performed without AD.

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Sergeant F

• In his abnormal state, Sergeant F performs
  numerous purposive actions of complexity at least
  as great as those performed by any animal.
• In his abnormal state, Sergeant F is unconscious.
• Analogy with the Frog.
• Therefore, the most complex purposive actions of
  animals could be performed unconsciously.

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Huxley's epiphenomenalism

• Disagrees with Descartes on whether animals have
  consciousness. They do have it, but it plays no
  role in controlling their behaviour. (p. 236)
• Argument from gradualism about evolution.
• This leaves two possibilities
• Parallelism consciousness and matter never
  interact.
• Epiphenomenalism they interact one way only
  (matter -gt consciousness)
• Humans are like animals they are automata. (pp.
  243-244)

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William James (1842-1910)
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Overview

• Part 1 Summarizes an argument similar to
  Huxley's
• Part 2 Discusses complementary evidence for
  epiphenomenalism
• Part 3 Suggests evidence against epiphenomenalism

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Terminology

• Consciousness states such as there is something
  it's like to be in.
• Sensations, visual experiences, emotional
  feelings, cognitive feelings, etc.

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Part 1 The reasoning for epiphenomenalism

• All mental states are perfectly correlated with
  physical states of the brain. (P1)
• No psychosis without neurosis
• Physical states of the brain are capable of
  controlling complex behaviour in absence of
  consciousness. (P2)
• So it is reasonable to conclude that
  consciousness does not control behaviour or
  otherwise influence physical events.

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Part 1 Who's argument is this?

• Huxley's? Not exactly Huxley merely relies on
  P2.
• Clifford's? Not exactly, Clifford seems to have
  in mind the exclusion argument discussed during
  week 1
• The physical world is causally closed (a point
  related to P1).
• Mental states are not physical.
• So mental states do not control behaviour or
  otherwise influence physical states.

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Part 2 For epiphenomenalism continuity

• If the frog's spinal cord is intelligent without
  consciousness, so can other parts of the nervous
  system.
• Reply?
• Why not reason the other way around to the
  conclusion that all parts of the nervous system
  are conscious?
• Objection perhaps because we have independent
  evidence to the contrary.

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Part 2 For epiphenomenalism simplicity

• Consciousness, feelings in particular, are too
  messy.
• We can do science more easily without them,
  provided we know they play no role in determining
  behaviour.
• Reply?
• Maybe James didn't find the argument worthy of a
  reply, because it is, as he suggests later, part
  of the job of psychology to explain human
  consciousness.

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Part 2 For epiphenomenalism the obscurity of
mental causation

• It is hard to conceive of a modus operandi for
  mental causation.
• Try to imagine the idea of a beefsteak binding
  two molecules together. (quote from Mercier)
• Reply As in the night all cats are gray, so in
  the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes
  are obscure. (p. 137)

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The obscurity of mental causation

• Translation
• all causal relations are very obscure, hence
  mental causation should not be rejected on pain
  of obscurity unless all causation is also
  rejected. If we don't want to reject causation
  altogether, we need to be satisfied with simple
  lawful correlations.
• Objection aren't there crucial differences?
• Mental-physical relations appear hard to
  generalize
• Mental states are hard to quantify, which makes
  it hard to think of laws connecting them to
  physical states.

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Part 3 Causal role and evolution

• Consciousness grows in importance and complexity
  with the complexity of organisms
• So it seems to have evolved.
• To evolve, it had to play a causal role.
• So consciousness plays a causal role.
• Objection it's possible that consciousness is
  only a by-product of some useful neural
  mechanism.
• See the Flanagan article for next week.

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Part 3 A special role for consciousness

• The preceding argument would work better if it
  could be shown that there is a role which only
  consciousness can play because of some
  shortcoming in the design of the brain.
• Perhaps this role is to stabilize the complex,
  fragile dynamics of advanced brains.

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Part 3 Conscious ends as stabilizers

• According to James, the human cortex is unstable
  it can react in massively different ways to only
  slightly different stimuli, this for a wide range
  of stimuli, and very reliably.
• Still according to James, consciousness can help
  harness this sensitivity of the cortex to direct
  its responses in profitable ways. It is
  well-suited for this role because it gives its
  purpose to an organism.

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Part 3 Evidence for a stabilizing role

• Consciousness is most acute when facing a
  complex, difficult decision (when the brain can
  take many different paths?)
• The adaptability of neural systems (e.g. how one
  hemisphere can take over the job of another).

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Criticism

• How do we know that the brain doesn't stabilize
  itself? James hasn't shown an unconscious brain
  going haywire.

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Part 3 Another argument for efficacy

• It is a well-known fact that pleasures are
  generally associated with beneficial, pains with
  detrimental, experiences. (p.143)
• If pleasures and pains have no efficacy, one
  does not see ... why the most noxious acts, such
  as burning, might not give thrills of delight,
  and the most necessary ones, such as breathing,
  cause agony. (p. 144)

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Conspicuously missing

• James does not respond to the line of argument
  seemingly advanced by Clifford in the excerpt he
  quotes.

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Exercise

• Provide the three best arguments you can for
  epiphenomenalism, and address possible responses
  to them.
• Use two pages maximum for your answer.