presentation of historical context of psychology
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TRANSCRIPT
THE MIND- BODY PROBLEM
The Mind
- The mental aspect consists of consciousness.
What is consciousness?
It is a type of mental state which involves thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams and self-awareness.
e.g. Sensation of the color red
Consciousness
• How did consciousness come to be?
God gave it :) The elementary particles of the
Big Bang made us so. Indians believed it was connected
to the existence of the spiritual.
Consciousness
Descartes believed that consciousness was an ‘observer in the head’, a higher function seperate from the workings of the physical brain.
‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ Descartes
‘Consciousness is axiomatic.’ You can not deny your mind because the act of denying your mind requires your mind. Consciousness doesnt rest upon anything to be valid.
The Physical Aspect
What is the Mind- Body problem?
• The mind- body problem is simply the question of how the mind and body are connected to each other. We believe they are connected somehow.
Physical events may affect mental state• E.g. Drinking too much Mental states may affect physical• E.g. Thinking of raising an arm
Mind over matter... Astral projection
Traditional solutions to the mind- body problem:
1.Monism
2.Dualism
3.Pluralism
4.Psychogeny
MONISM
• Reality,whatever it is, is all one piece.
• Material and nonmaterial parts cannot be seperated.
• Nothing is foreign.• Unity of knowledge.• Conflict between
monists.• Monism in religious
and spiritual systems.
Hinduism Buddhism Islam
Judaism Christianity
Oppositional forms of monism
• MATERIALISM :Matter is important.Only material and
physical things.Reference of MatterThe body exists not
the mind.
History of Materialism
• Axial Age• In ancient Idian
philosophy, it developed around 600 BCE by Ajita Kesakambali,Payasi & Kanada.
• Thales, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus.
• The poem of Lucretius.
European enlightment
• Thomas Hobbes & Pierre Gassendi
• Denis Didorit, Ludwig Feuebarch & John “Walking” Stewart
Pierre Gassendi
Thomas Hobbes
Karl Marx & Friederich Engels
The idea of Social metarialism
• IDEALISM :Reality based on mind or ideas.Reality is inseperable from mind,consciousness or
perception.contrasted with materialism
• History of Idealism Plato Kant Hegel Berkeley Royce
PLATO
• EPIPHENOMENALISMKnown as Type-E dualismMental events are caused by or a by
product physical events.One way interaction.The body makes things happen.
MIND is a byproduct of BODY
HISTORY OF EPIPHENOMALISM
• Post-Cartesian • Shadworth Hodgson:First
formulation of epiphenomalism.
• Thomas Huxley:Locomotive
• Frank Jackson: Mary’s room
Thomas Huxley
DUALISM11/03/08
3 positions of dualismInteractionism
Psychophsical Parallelism
Emergentism (Epiphenomenalism)
11/03/08
InteractionismPOSITION: Mental states influence each
other and bodily events, and vice versa.
PROBLEMS:
1.Problem of causation
2.Locus of interaction
11/03/08
Psychophysical ParallelismPOSITION: Mental states influence each
other. Bodily events also influence each other. BUT these two cannot influence
each other.PROBLEMS:
1. Commonsense?
2. A pre-established harmony
11/03/08
Emergentism (Epiphenomenalism)
POSITION: Mental processes are produced by brain processes, but are qualitatively
different.
11/03/08
The physical can effect the mental and each other but otherwise is not acceptable.
Why give up dualism?Mental depends on the physical
Unexplained aspects (not informative)
Pluralism• What is Pluralism?• Pluralism embraces the reality of
mind and body but also insists that these two orders are not the only possibilities.
Pluralism Many Realities !!!
• Attributive Pluralism emphasizes the relationship between an object and the words that are used to describe the object.
What is a sunset?
Attributive Pluralism
Psychogeny: the origin of psuche
mind,spirit,soul
principle of life, existence associated with mental processes (consciousness, perception, self-awearness,memory...)
IT:individuals’ role related behaviours
SIT: group processes and ingroup relations
Identity Theory
George Herbert Mead (1934) “society shapes self shapes social behaviour”
-punctuated and complete instatiation of pusche into a material substrate at a given instant time
-continuity between the “besouled” that is the starting of the individual life and later conscious and self-reflective person
-continuity between fertilized egg and the later individual
Identity = Sameness
Arbitrary Time of Infusion
• after 40 days if male
after 80 days if female
• quickening
Colony of cells; morula or blastocyst
= twins, artificial fertilization
...that spirits are standing by at the mating and birth of animals- a numberless number of immortals on the look-out for mortal frames, jostling to get in first... Or is there perhaps an established compact that first come will be first served?
( Lucretius,1959)
Emergentism: unity of physical and mental worlds
John Stuart Mill System of Logic(1843)
C.D. Broad The Mind and its Place in Nature(1925)
Llyod Morgan & Samuel Alexander Space, Time and Deity (1920)
Ludwig von Bertalanffy General System Theory
Arbitrary Time of Emergence-colony of cells has an apparent sense of boundaries and these boundaries constitutes primitive awareness.
-there is no primitive awareness without a reasonably well developed nervous system
How much complexity is required?
Are they conscious without a circulatory system?Are they conscious without a circulatory system?
Is colony of cells without a nervous system conscious?
Is it same me today as it was years ago?
Is a high school student less of a person than a proffessor?
How should happy adults with rich personal experiences but low intellegence be treated?
Emergentism devalues psuche?Emergentism devalues psuche?