Philosophy of mind

In Thomas Nagel’s paper— “What Is It Like to Be a Bat”— the inconceivability of physicalism as “a position we cannot understand” is born out of a discussion of the mind-body problem, and in particular, a discussion of objective and subjective experiences. Rather than positioning physicalism as false, Nagel maintains that physicalism is that which is presently incomprehensible because of the “subjective character of experience”— the conscious experience— which not only clouds our understanding of…

body as empirical but not conscious and the soul or mind as not empirical but conscious. He believed that although the mind and body were separate from each other they were still connected through their interactions with the brain therefore both affecting each other. Unlike Gilbert Ryle and another Materialist’s who believe there is nothing after death, Descartes believed that when people die their empirical body is left behind but their soul or mind with continue to God. However, Ryle dismissed…

Data. Data, an android learns that the dualism theory shows that the mind and the body are two different things. Overall, Data must contain both mind and body even though machines only contain the trait that is physical and not the mental traits within the body. It appears that Picard demonstrated the view of Emergentism and Maddox views the Dualism theory. According to Hasker (1983), in reference to Emergentism, “the human mind or soul is produced by the human brain and is not a separate…

Although knowledge of the self dates back to the times of Ancient Greece, with Socrates and Plato, the context to support and prove each varying position of self-concept is certainly limited. As an example, the self can be described as the soul or the mind. There are also two opposing positions of what the self is – materialism and dualism. A materialistic approach is one that looks at the self as an unimportant concept, in other words, human beings are simply just a physical body. On the other…

In "Putnam's BIV and The Disjunctive Argument", Brueckner breaks down what Hilary Putnam was trying to communicate. Putnam first establishes the setting of the "brains in a vat" hypothesis, which is a world filled with envatted brains and computers that stimulate the brains, and it turns out that you are a brain inside a vat. These brains go by the name of BIV, and then she goes on to state that she is not a BIV due to the considerations pertaining to meaning, which concerns reference and truth.…

dualists, many philosophers, such as Descartes believe that the mind and body of one being are fundamentally different from one another and hence, the mind is not part of the physical realm. However, if this is the case, how can an interaction between these two radically distinctive entities occur? Mental causation, as an argument against dualism, is defined as "the bringing about of effects, physical or mental, by minds or goings-on in minds" (1). It is modelled around the question how mental…

Heloise abandons the passion of her previous letters and resolves to occupy her mind with “constructive thoughts.” She makes two requests of Abelard: that he explain the origin of the order of nuns, and provide advice on a monastic rule appropriate for women (modification to the Benedictine Rule that was then applied to both male and…

strengthen the idea of subjective character: While an account of the physical basis of mind must explain many things, this appears to be the most difficult. It is impossible to exclude the phenomenological features of experience from a reduction in the same way that one excludes the phenomenal features of an ordinary substance from a physical or chemical reduction of it---namely, by explaining them as effects on the mind of human observers. If physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological…

in Genji’s acceptance of his cyborg body, says in-game, “Life is more than a series of ones and zeroes.” Since ones and zeroes are often used to represent binaries when coding, Zenyatta, like Haraway, rejects binaries. With Zenyatta’s teachings in mind, Genji eventually reconciles “his dual existence as both man and machine… and in doing so, he has discovered a higher humanity.” To this effect, by choosing to accept his cyborg body, Genji destroys the boundary between human and omnic,…

The mind-body problem is a very unique problem. Having consciousness is what makes this problem so difficult. Without having consciousness, the mind-body problem would be much simpler and less interesting. In fact, most reductionist theories don’t even try to explain this problem. Concerning consciousness, it’s difficult to provide evidence of it but it is found at many different levels of animal life. Consciousness is referred to as being able to know what it’s like to be that organism. In this…