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39 Cards in this Set
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What does 'Cogito ergo sum' mean, and who did this saying derive from? |
Cogito ergo sum is a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes (1596 - 1650) usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am". One can only be certain of is ones own conscious awareness. |
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Monism |
Monism (idealism and materialism): underlying concept is 'oneness'. A theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction or duality in a particular sphere, such as that between matter and mind, or God and the world. Believers in idealism believe that what the mind can conceive is the only reality. The philosophical view that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance |
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Dualism |
Dualism (Substance dualism and Property dualism): a presumption proposed by Rene Descartes that the human mind and body are two distinct entities that interact with each other to make a person. Descartes reasoned that the mind and the body communicate with each other through a small structure at the base of the brain called the pineal gland |
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Idealism/Phenomenalism (philosophical Monism) |
A philosophical concept that places importance on the mental and spiritual aspects in interpretation of our experiences and our environment. Idealists believe that ideas are what construct our reality and that things do not exist outside of the mental realm. |
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Materialism (philosophical Monism) |
A form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical.The Monistic philosophical belief in materialism states that only what is physical is real. |
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Substance dualism |
Proposes that material (brain) cannot think, and the mind has no physical capability. They are made up of two different substances, meaning one doesn't reduce to the other. |
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Property dualism |
Similar to substance dualism, but for the fact that non-physical (i.e mental substances) exist in physical substances (i.e, the brain). Suggests there is one type of substance but two kinds of properties which inhere in that substance. |
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What is the Cutaneous Rabbit Effect (CRE) and what does it suggest? |
Illustrates the effect of touches when you rapidly tap the wrist, then the elbow, giving the illusion of touches between the two, as if a rabbit has hopped up the arm. The CRE has been used to illustrate how the brain constructs the subjective experience of time and space. |
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Geldard & sherrick, 1972; Flach & Haggard, 2006 |
(CRE): The effect depends on the time interval between the taps. |
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Blankenburg, Ruff, Deichmann, Rees, & Driver (2006): Illusion of conscious experiences of space. |
(CRE) - Illusion of conscious experiences of space: - used FMRI to show that illusion activated those parts of the somatosensory cortex (area of brain processing touch signals - that corresponds to the points of illusory contact) The brain makes assumptions on the basis of input from senses (i.e tapping on the hand). The brain 'filling in' is carried out within brain areas responsible for conscious processing and recruits areas which at the cortical level would suggest that the sensation is not imagined but REAL. |
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Time and space are represented separately. |
An explicit representation of time might interact with a tactile representation of space to produce the time-dependent mislocalization effects i.e concept of time passing fills in the passing of effects on space (i.e skin across the arm). |
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Time and space are a join representation. |
The codes used to represent spatial location might themselves have temporal properties i.e the passing of effects on space is associated with our understanding of time. |
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What is Interactive substance and what does it postulate about behaviour? |
It suggests that mental and physical substances interact directly with each other, postulates that behaviour is mediated only by mental or cognitive functions. Illustrated by cutaneous rabbit effect. |
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Psychophysical parellelism |
Mental and physical substances exist in parallel, and do not interact with each other. |
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What are some problems with Dualism? |
- how can non-physical substances influence physical substance (i.e CRE) - how can the non-physical be localised to the physical? - why are their corresponding changes to consciousness when there are changes to physical states |
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Can Dualism account for all phenomena? |
- unable to account for all phenomena that current neuroscience has revealed (cognitive consciousness has been explained by reference to the physical, and this is largely through new empirical methods (EEG/MEEG/TMS/fMRI) - not necessarily the most parsimonious explanation, as prescribing two types of substances is not as simple as describing just one |
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What is Epiphenomalism? Is it a form of dualism or materialism? |
- an indirect form of dualism - mind is a by product of the brain, the mind cannot influence the brain (Leibniz, Spinoza) - scientific explanation should be attached to phenomena that are observable (i.e measurable), so it does not support inferred states of mind e.g beliefs, desires, ideas, and hopes etc. - inferred mental states not useful descriptions of phenomena; no need for any reference to mental states as they do not have causal efficacy - explanations of behaviour should depend on external factors |
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What is Identity Theory, and what philosophical form is it? |
- form of physicalism - states of the mind correlate with states of the brain (Hobbes) (mind and brain correspond) |
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What is Functionalism, and is it the form of materialism or dualism? |
- Either materialism/dualism Functionalism suggests that mental states have functional relationships to behaviour [causal roles] (Chomsky). - Being in a particular mental state is determined by the functional role of the state i.e. mental state of pain has a functional role, referring to an inner condition |
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What is emergent interactionism? |
- Suggests that states of the mind emerge from states of the brain [as a process of interaction of mind and brain - and even external world] (Vandervert, Sperry) |
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What should a theory of behaviour be built around? |
SRRC: - The Stimulus (external determinant of behaviour) - The Response (observable external behaviour) - The Reinforcer (external factor that maintains behaviour) - The Consequences (the way in which behaviour is shaped) |
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What are the problems of identity theory? |
- It is too narrow an approach if associating mental with only brains. What about computers? What about other organisms? - A subjective experience is different from the brain state that it is correlated with (can't be sure that the mental and physical occupy the same space e.g dissociations between consciousness and electrophysiological activity in the brain) |
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What philosophical argument did Sperry's split brain studies try to prove? |
Sperry attempted to revive materialism by claiming the following: The mind is an emergent property of brain functioning, and what it usually does is read states of the brain and transform them to mental states - which feedback into the system. Therefore, it possible for consciousness to exert control on specific neural firings in the brain - subjective causation. |
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What is subjective causation (downward causation)? |
Emergent interactionism implies downward causation, a causal relationship from higher levels of a system to lower-level parts of that system, e.g if you decide to drive somewhere, your decision can activate a chain of events that will cause your car to move, according to the principles of downward causation |
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What is upward causation and what is it's relationship with emergent interactionism? |
Upward causation, a causal relationship from lower-level parts of the system to higher levels of that system, e.g, the movement of gasoline molecules cause the engine to work, thus causing your car to move. Emergent interactionism ignores upward causation as it implies downward causation. |
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What does the analogy of the Computational mind illustrate? |
It illustrates functionalism, as the analogy proposes the mind as a computer program, and the brain as a computer hardware (cognitive psychology founded on this principle) |
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What is the problem of functionalism? |
Can conscious states be exhaustively analysed in terms of function? |
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What did Boring (1950) claim about physical events in relation to Materialism? |
The physical events which are our behaviour observed by the outside world are associated with or are directly a function of brain activity. 'The chief function of the brain is - thought, perhaps, or consciousness'. |
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What view is the most widely accepted approach to understanding behaviour? |
Dualism. There are many current theories of consciousness that adopt this view, suggesting both material and mental events are necessary for behaviour to emerge. |
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How does Libet (1980)'s work contribute towards the mind-body problem? |
Libet (1980) is a famous neurologist in the early 1980s who found that the brain prepares to act not just before one actually decides to commit the act, but even before one experiences the desire to act. His findings which revealed that the brain activity (readiness potential) preceded conscious awareness of the decision to move by a couple hundred millseconds illustrates how free will is possibly an illusion, thus supporting a monist view that is materialism to suggest that the neurological activity in the brain is what leads to any behaviour. His experiment is often cited by materialists when they deny free will. |
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How does Haggard (2006)'s work relate to the mind-body problem? |
In the CRE, a tactile event is mislocalised toward an adjacent attractor tap. Effect depends on the time interval between taps. The mislocalisations occured when the attractor tap preceded the attractee tap, consistent with the CRE arising from spatiotemporal interactions between the sensory codes for each individual tap. |
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Describe Libet (1980)'s experiment. |
Libet was interested in the correspondence of electrical signals from the brain (measured by electrodes taped to the intact scalp in awake volunteers) and the contents of consciousness. His famous experiment involves measuring electrical acitvity in the brain when volunteers were asked to move their wrist. The volunteer would look at a moving clock and note the exact time that he consciously decided to move his wrist. Libet compared the timing of the brain activity with the timing of the volunteer's decision to move, consistently finding that the readiness potential preceding the conscious awareness of a decision to move by a couple hundred milliseconds. The timing typically went like this 'readiness potential... 400ms... awareness of intent to move.. 200ms... move wrist). |
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What follow up work has been done in response to Libet (1980)'s experiments? |
Other researchers have repeated Libet's experiments, with similar results, and recently researchers have used fMRI to carry out Libet-like experiments. The fMRI studies show that there are often brain activates that precede the conscious decision by several seconds. |
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What input has Jerry Coyne contributed towards the mind-body debate? |
Jerry Coyne has denied the idea of free will, often citing Libet's experiments as scientific evidence that free will is simply an illusion, and that 'voluntary' decisions are really generated by electrochemical processes in the brain. Thus, this supports a materialistic perspective of the mind-body debate as it suggests that our decisions and behaviour purely derives from our mind, a material matter. |
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Did Libet believe in free will? |
Libet himself was actually a strong defender of free will, noting that his subjects often vetoed the unconscious 'decision' after the readiness potential appeared. The volitional process is initiated unconsciously, but conscious function could still control the outcome, it can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded; perhaps free won't is a more accurate term? |
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What does Szpunar (2010) indicate in her article that can contribute towards the mind-body debate? |
The article proposes the ability to mentally stimulate hypothetical scenarios is a rapidly growing area of research in both episodic future thought, or the ability to stimulate specific personal episodes that may potentially occur in the future, represents one facet of this general capacity that continues to garner a considerable amount of inter. Many research findings from neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology have demonstrated a close relation between episodic future thought and ability to remember personal episodes from one's past. |
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What did Miller & Trevena (2009) suggest in response to Libet's experiments? |
They believed that the readiness potential in Libet's experiment doesn't represent a decision to move, but that it's merely a sign that the brain is paying attention. In this experiment, an audio tone indicating volunteers to decide whether or not to tap a key or not showed that the same RP signal in both plans of action, regardless of whether they elected a tap or not. This suggests that the RP signal doesn't indicate a decision that has been made. In second experiment, researchers asked volunteers to decide on the spot whether to use left or right hand to tap the key while monitoring their brain signals, finding no correlation among signals and chosen hands. |
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What did free-will researcher Patrick Haggard think about Miller & Trevena (2009)'s experiment? |
He proposed that the literature distinguishes two different circuits in the brain that lead to action: a 'stimulus-response' circuit and a 'voluntary' circuit. According to Haggard, researchers applying external stimuli may not be testing the proposed voluntary circuit, nor Libet's hypothesis about internally triggered actions. |
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Haggard et al., (2002) |
Sense of agency and Intentional binding: When we make a simple press of the button and it produces a beep, the time interval between the two is perceived to be shorter. |
