philosophy e156: philosophy of mind week nine: more approaches to mind & body, & some...

Philosophy E156: Philosophy of Mind

Week Nine: More Approaches to Mind & Body, &

Some Concepts of Consciousness

Is your mind your brain, or is it something different?

Are your experiences just physical aspects of your brain, or are they something beyond the physical aspects of your brain?

Functional State Identity

Theory




Theory


Functionalism topic neutral



Theory




Topic neutral – mental states are whatever are caused by inputs, cause outputs, and are causally related to

other mental states

Four Sources of Functionalism

• (1) Concerns about multiple realizability

• (2) Attempts to give “topic-neutral” analyses of mental concepts

• (3) The computer model of the mind

• (4) Lewis’s influential use of Ramsification in “An Argument for the Identity Theory”


• (1) Concerns about multiple realizability– Already discussed



• (4) Lewis’s influential use of Ramsification in “An Argument for the Identity Theory”





• (4) Lewis’s influential use of Ramsification in “An Argument for the Identity Theory”– I will omit – because it’s technical, it’s complicated and

Heil mentions it but really does not discuss it



• (2) Attempts to give “topic-neutral” analyses of mental concepts – Next






• (2) Attempts to give “topic-neutral” analyses of mental concepts – Next

• (3) The computer model of the mind– After discussing (2)



Second Source for Functionalism:Topic Neutrality

• You’ll recall that Smart’s response to dualism requires “topic neutrality” – concepts that pick out mental states without being committed to whether they are physical or nonphysical.

• Like behaviorism, functionalism can be used to give “topic-neutral” analyses of mental concepts.

• Define pain, for example, with a definition of the following form: pain is the state (1) which is caused by such-and-such external causes (such as perceptions), (2) which causes such-and-such external effects (behaviors), and (3) which is related as cause or effect to such-and-such other mental states.

• That definition is “topic-neutral,” since it can be satisfied by a physical state as well as by a nonphysical state.

Smart’s Treatment of Objection 3: The Fregean Objection

Smart’s “Objection 3”

Smart asks: “Now how do I get over the objection that a sensation can be identified with a brain process only if it has some [irreducibly mental] phenomenal property, not possessed by brain processes, whereby one-half of the identification may be, so to speak, pinned down?” (Page 64.)

Smart’s “Topic-Neutrality” Solution• “When a person says, ‘I see a yellowish-orange after-

image,’ he is saying something like this: ‘There is something going on which is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me, that is, when I really see an orange.’”

• “Notice that the italicized words, namely ‘there is something going on which is like what is going on when,’ are all quasi-logical or topic-neutral words.”

• “This explains why the ancient Greek peasant’s reports about his sensations can be neutral between dualistic metaphysics or my materialistic metaphysics.”

Smart’s Caveat (at the end of “Objection 3”)

“The strength of my reply depends on the possibility of our being able to report that one thing is like another without being able to state the respect in which it is like. I am not sure whether this is so or not, and that is why I regard Objection 3 as the strongest with which I have to deal.”

Smart’s Problem Not a Problem

• “The strength of my reply depends on the possibility of our being able to report that one thing is like another without being able to state the respect in which it is like. I am not sure whether this is so or not, and that is why I regard Objection 3 as the strongest with which I have to deal.”

• That’s not a problem, since clearly I can report that this pain is like that pain without being able to report “the respect in which it is like.”

The Deeper Problem & the Functionalist’s Topic-Neutral Solution• The deeper problem is that because of the possibility of

inverted spectra and absent qualia, the topic-neutral property that Smart posits to pick out the mental state on the mental side of the psychophysical identity cannot do its work

• The property of “being whatever goes on in me which is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me, that is, when I really see an orange” can pick out a brain state associated with bluish appearances instead of orangish ones, or in the absent qualia case, associated with an absence of color appearances

• But the functionalist thinks adding associations to other mental states eliminates inverted spectra and absent qualia

The Third Source for Functionalism: The Computer Model of the Mind

• Computationalism• Heil refers to it, but does not formally set it

out. The best he does is this:– “Suppose you thought of minds in roughly the way

you might think of computing machines. A mind is a device capable of performing particular sorts of operation. States of mind resemble computational states, at least to the extent that they could occur, in principle, in many different kinds of material (and perhaps immaterial, a qualification I shall henceforth omit) system” (p. 90)

Machine-State Functionalism

• It was on the basis of this way of thinking that Hilary Putnam introduced “machine state functionalism” in the 1960’s– “Minds and Machines” in 1960– “The Nature of Mental States” in 1967

A Machine Description

• Ned Block in his article “What Is Functionalism?” introduces the following automaton:

S1 S2

1 "Odd"S2

"Even"S1

Block’s Description of the Machine’s States

• “[T]his automaton has two states, S1 and S2 and two outputs, ‘Odd’ or ‘Even’…. [I]t only has one input, ‘1’, though of course it can get no input at all…. [T]he table describes two functions, one from input and state to output, and another from input and state to next state…. [E]ach square encodes two conditionals specifying the output and next state given both the current state and input. The left box says that if the machine is in S1 and sees a ‘1 ‘, it says ‘Odd’ (indicating that it has seen an odd number of ‘1’s) and goes to S2. The right box says, similarly, that if the machine is in S2 and sees a ‘1’, it says ‘Even’ and goes back to S1. This machine … intuitively serves the … purpose [of telling] us whether it has seen an odd or even number of ‘1’s.”

What Is a Machine State Such as S1?

• Suppose we ask: “What is S1?”

• This is the answer Block gives:– “Being in S1 = being in the first of two states that

are related to one another and to inputs and outputs as follows: being in one of the states and getting a ‘1’ input results in going into the second state and emitting ‘Odd’; and being in the second of the two states and getting a ‘1’ input results in going into the first and emitting ‘Even’.”

The Computationalist Account of Mental States

• The computationalist gives a similar sort of answer to questions of the form “What is mental state M1?”

• Being in M1 is, roughly, being in a state that is: – caused by inputs I1, I2, etc.; and

– causes output O1, if already in Mi, etc., or

– causes other mental state Mj, if already in Mj+1,…, etc.

• Notice the resemblance to the functional definition of mental-state terms like “pain.”


Theory





other mental states


Theory

Representational Theory of Mind





other mental states


Theory




Your brain



other mental states


Theory




Your brain



other mental states

All mental states are

representational states


Theory


Dennett’s Intentional

Stance



Your brain



other mental states




Theory



Stance



Your brainInstrumentalist –matter of how we usefully see

ourselves



other mental states




Theory



Stance




ourselves



other mental states



Talk of mental states is talk of states that we

regard our-selves and

other creatures as having in

order to make sense of their pursuing ends


Theory



Stance

Eliminative Materialism




ourselves



other mental states








Theory



Stance





ourselves

There is no mind



other mental states








Theory



Stance





ourselves

There is no mind



other mental states







Talk of experience – mental talk generally –

refers to nothing at all – it is false folk psychology

Concepts of Consciousness

Concepts of Consciousness• Three hypotheses about the word “consciousness”:• The Platonism Hypothesis: There is a single meaning to the word, and it

is used with that meaning in a variety of ways.– Socrates’ example in Republic of justice, the one thing all just things

supposedly have in common by virtue of which they are all just

• The Ambiguity Hypothesis: The word has several different meanings, and these different meanings explain in part the different ways it is used.– Block’s example of “velocity,” ambiguous between meaning average

velocity and instantaneous velocity

• The Cluster Concept Hypothesis: The word expresses a concept by way of a prototype or paradigm, even though various instances might be missing important aspects of the prototype or paradigm.– Wittgenstein’s example of a game; Putnam’s example of a disease; Block’s

example of a religion

Ned Block Embraces the Ambiguity Hypothesis

• Block writes that “the word ‘consciousness’ connotes a number of different concepts and denotes a number of different phenomena.”

• He calls the concept “a hybrid or better, a mongrel concept”• Thus, he says, “We reason about ‘consciousness’ using some

premises that apply to one of the phenomena that fall under ‘consciousness,’ other premises that apply to other ‘consciousnesses’ and we end up in trouble.”

• Ambiguity in this case can be “verified by reflection alone,” unlike claims about natural kinds (such as the claim that cancer is not a natural kind).

• He claims that “one can make up one’s mind about whether there is ambiguity by finding equivocation hard to deny.”

Block’s Four Concepts of Consciousness

• Phenomenal consciousness, or P-consciousness

• Access-consciousness, or A-consciousness• Self-consciousness• Monitoring consciousness

How Block Characterizes Phenomenal Consciousness

• “Phenomenal consciousness is experience”• “[W]hat makes a state phenomenally conscious is that there

is something ‘it is like’ to be in that state”– [Identifying phenomenal consciousness with experience looks odd if

consciousness is the property a mental state has of being conscious, since it would not seem to be true that experience is a property of being conscious – we use the word “experience” differently]

• “I cannot define P-consciousness in any remotely non-circular way” – i.e., in any “reductive” way

• “[T]he best one can do for P-consciousness is in some respects worse than for many other things because really all one can do is point to the phenomenon”

• “[H]ow should we point to P-consciousness? … [V]ia rough synonyms [and] examples”

How Block Characterizes Access Consciousness

• “A representation is A-conscious if it is broadcast for free use in reasoning and for direct ‘rational’ control of action (including reporting)”

• “An A-state is one that consists in having an A-representation”

• “[P]ut crudely, … A-conscious content is representational”– “It is of the essence of A-conscious content to play a role in reasoning,

and only representational content can figure in reasoning”

• “[T]he paradigm A-conscious states are ‘propositional attitude’ states like thoughts, beliefs and desires…. (E.g., the thought that grass is green.)”

• “I see A-consciousness as a cluster concept in which – reportability is the element of the cluster that has the smallest weight – even though it is often the best practical guide to A-consciousness”

Self-Consciousness

• Block writes: “I mean the possession of the concept of the self and the ability to use this concept in thinking about oneself”

• Mirror behavior– Chimps try to wipe off spots painted on their foreheads and ears– Monkeys do not– Neither do human babies until after 18 mos.– Dogs treat their mirror images as strangers, unlike higher primates

• If we take monkeys and dogs and young infants are thus lacking in self-consciousness, we do not correspondingly deny they have pain or deny there is something it is like for them to see themselves in the mirror– Thus P-consciousness differs from self-consciousness – animals might

lack the latter and have the former

“Me-ishness”

• Block claims that P-consciousness often seem to have what he calls a “me-ishness” to them

• What exactly does he mean?• He writes that “the phenomenal content often represents the state as

a state of me.”• He means that “the phenomenal content of a P-conscious state of

mine represents the state as a state of me.”• But the experiences of two qualitatively different P-conscious states –

e.g., red and green – can nevertheless be “the same … in self-orientation.”

• Thus, P-consciousness can’t reduce to self-consciousness.

philosophy e156: philosophy of mind week nine: more approaches to mind & body, & some...

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