How do you know you have a mind?

1

• How do you know you have a mind?
• How do you know the person next to you has a
  mind?
• What is a mind?

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2
Today we will

• Examine the mind-body problem
• Distinguish between what people mean by mind
  and body
• Discuss some different approaches to the
  mind-body relationship including
• Cartesian dualism
• Materialism (mind-brain identity)
• Emergentism

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3

• What is the difference between brain and
  mind?

Third person ontology A person is a body with a
brain that behaves in particular ways
First person ontology I have sensations,
thoughts, feelings, intentions
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Mental states

• Are conscious
• They involve a subjective experience of thinking,
  perceiving, imagining etc.
• Are private
• They are not open to inspection by anyone other
  than the person who has them
• Have intentionality
• Are always about something

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The mind-body problem

• How can we account for the existence of both
  first and third-person ontologies?
• How can a thing have a point of view? (Dennett,
  2005)

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Cartesian dualism

• Rene Descartes (1641)

Physical Mechanistic
Non-physical Free-willed
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Cartesian dualism

• Is it possible for something non-physical to
  affect something physical?
• Is it legitimate to use the action of God in a
  solution to the mind-body problem?

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Materialism

• Mind-brain identity theory
• Mental states are brain states. Brain activity
  is necessary and sufficient to explain mental
  activity (Place, 1956).

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Materialism

• What evidence can we put forward to support the
  view that mental states are brain states?

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Materialism

• What does the materialist view imply about free
  will?
• If we provide a complete account of the brain
  processes that give rise to consciousness, will
  the mind-body problem have been solved?

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Emergentism
Water molecule
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Emergentism
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Emergentism
Conscious experience
An individual neurone is not conscious, but
100,000,000,000 neurones interacting in certain
ways may give rise to consciousness as an
emergent property
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• An emergentist is just a dualist who is too
  embarrassed to use the word soul.
• Discuss.

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15

• Yes, we have a soul. But it is made of lots of
  tiny robots. (Dennett, 2005)

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