Philosophy@Utah State

This class will explore various views about the relationship between mind and body. Specifically, we will examine substance and property dualism, materialism, functionalism, and the problems surrounding consciousness, qualia, mental representation, and free will.

Philosophy 4410 syllabus

On Tuesday, Nov. 30 we will be discussing this essay by Galen Strawson on narrativity:

narrativity.and.nonnarrativity

In class I have made use of the case of Mary, who is confined in a black and white environment while she learns all of the physical facts of the brain, before being turned loose and seeing red for the first time. Does she learn anything new? For a fuller discussion of the arguments involved, see this section of an article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Here is an essay by Galen Strawson we will be discussing in class. It articulates a kind of materialism about the mind without reducing mental events to neurological events, understood narrowly:

Strawson – Realistic Materialist Monism

Students recently wrote very short essays on the sense in which a simulated hurricane is a real hurricane. Here is my own essay on the topic:

Why a simulated hurricane might be thought of as a real hurricane

Fundamentally, the mind/body problem can be seen in the conflict among 4 statements, each of which seems plausible on its own:

1. The mind is a mental thing — it is not a thing with a specific size or shape. Its essence lies in its ability to think, represent, and ponder.
2. The body is a physical thing — it is the sort of thing with size and shape, and is responsive to physical forces of nature, like gravity and so on.
3. Mind and body interact — thoughts cause behavior, and affecting the body often affects our conscious experience (getting tickled, stuck by pins, etc.).
4. Mental things and physical things cannot interact — how could they?! A mental thing like a belief or idea is not affected by gravity or collision, and a physical thing can’t be moved by an idea.

These four claims cannot all be true — at least one of them has to go. Roughly, most (but not all) dualists typically reject 4, and materialists typically reject 1. But then dualists are left with the problem of interaction — how can mind and body interact? — and materialists are left with the problem of emergence — how can thoughts, feelings, and conscious experiences arise out of a physical system?

More reading

Ack! The bookstore ran out of books. Make sure they know what you need, or they won’t order it. Meanwhile, here is a file containing two readings having to do with the Turing test, which we’ll be discussing over 7 & 9 Sept.

Turing test readings

Here is an article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about dualism.

Here is Wikipedia’s article on various kinds of ways to resolve the mind/body problem.

Here is a New Yorker essay by Oliver Sacks about a person who lost large portions of his memory, along with the ability to form memories, but retained the ability to recognize his wife and read and play music. It is a fascinating look at how complex human memory is. It also ties into our class discussions about memory, and whether the known connections between brain structures and memory make dualism harder to believe.

Well, it’s not what it’s like to be a bat, but it’s how baboons think. Recent article in the New York Times.

Another New Yorker article. (What, are they tracking our class?) This one is on the use of brain scans on patients in vegetative states. It is surprising how much seems to be going on in these patients cognitively.