Consciousness Key Terms
Chapter 1
Consciousness = private experiences
Churchland: understanding consciousness has evolved -> defining it is as easy as
answering vital fluid question
Chalmers: finding definition is unlikely since itself needs to be explained
Cartesian dualism (Descartes): if you question reality -> never be sure of anything
(scepticism). Only that you think so you must exist.
Substance dualism = thinking is non-material and separate from physical body -> how does
the mind interact with the body if they are made of different substances?
Property dualism = world is composed only of physical substance (only described using
mental terms)
Descartes: interaction mind body through pineal gland
Gilbert Ryle: don’t use non-material terms for material things because they give material
properties to non-material things
Dualist interactionism (Popper & Eccles) = processes in synapses can be influenced by
non-physical thinking -> self can control brain
Libet: non-physical conscious mental field responsible for unity and continuity of subjective
experience and free will
Naturalistic dualism (Chalmers) = psychophysical laws (form of property dualism ->
information takes physical forms)
Monism = only physical things exist
Cartesian materialism (Dennett) = there is a place and time where everything comes
together and consciousness happens -> cartesian theatre. Materialism depends on physical
properties -> changes in consciousness must be accompanied by changes in brain
(supervenience)
James: everything is composed of only one primal type of stuff (neutral monism)
Functionalism = type of monism -> mental states are identified by functional role
Panpsychism = material things have an awareness
, Weber-Fechner Law = sensation to the intensity of a stimulus
Hermann von Helmholtz: first to measure nerve signal speed
Phenomenology = putting subjective experience first
Edmund Husserl: go back to the way things occur in experience
Wilhelm Wundt: two types of physical elements -> every conscious experience depends on
union of both elements
Watson: create a psychology based on prediction and control of behaviour (behaviourism)
Pavlov: classical conditioning
Radical empiricism = experience must be at heart of philosophical inquiry and understood
beyond physical data
4E (Embodied, Enactive, Embedded, Extended) = study consciousness through neurons
focuses on experiences that come from the body and feedback from environment
Levine: explanatory gap = metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious
experience (gap inner outer world)
Chalmers: gap exists because of difference easy and hard problems
Easy problems = mechanisms of attention and behavioural control
Hard problems = how physical processes in brain cause subjective experiences
Freud: unconscious (id, ego, superego) and conscious interact to create personality and
motivation
Chapter 2
Nagel: understanding mental states caused by neurons firing
Phenomenality (Block) = what makes a state phenomenally conscious is that one can
describe what it is like to be in that state
Block: reflective consciousness = higher order reflection about thinking about thinking
Peirce and Lewis: qualia = fundamental building blocks of sensory experience
Consciousness inessentialism = consciousness exists but does nothing
Nagel: no solution to hard problem
Chapter 1
Consciousness = private experiences
Churchland: understanding consciousness has evolved -> defining it is as easy as
answering vital fluid question
Chalmers: finding definition is unlikely since itself needs to be explained
Cartesian dualism (Descartes): if you question reality -> never be sure of anything
(scepticism). Only that you think so you must exist.
Substance dualism = thinking is non-material and separate from physical body -> how does
the mind interact with the body if they are made of different substances?
Property dualism = world is composed only of physical substance (only described using
mental terms)
Descartes: interaction mind body through pineal gland
Gilbert Ryle: don’t use non-material terms for material things because they give material
properties to non-material things
Dualist interactionism (Popper & Eccles) = processes in synapses can be influenced by
non-physical thinking -> self can control brain
Libet: non-physical conscious mental field responsible for unity and continuity of subjective
experience and free will
Naturalistic dualism (Chalmers) = psychophysical laws (form of property dualism ->
information takes physical forms)
Monism = only physical things exist
Cartesian materialism (Dennett) = there is a place and time where everything comes
together and consciousness happens -> cartesian theatre. Materialism depends on physical
properties -> changes in consciousness must be accompanied by changes in brain
(supervenience)
James: everything is composed of only one primal type of stuff (neutral monism)
Functionalism = type of monism -> mental states are identified by functional role
Panpsychism = material things have an awareness
, Weber-Fechner Law = sensation to the intensity of a stimulus
Hermann von Helmholtz: first to measure nerve signal speed
Phenomenology = putting subjective experience first
Edmund Husserl: go back to the way things occur in experience
Wilhelm Wundt: two types of physical elements -> every conscious experience depends on
union of both elements
Watson: create a psychology based on prediction and control of behaviour (behaviourism)
Pavlov: classical conditioning
Radical empiricism = experience must be at heart of philosophical inquiry and understood
beyond physical data
4E (Embodied, Enactive, Embedded, Extended) = study consciousness through neurons
focuses on experiences that come from the body and feedback from environment
Levine: explanatory gap = metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious
experience (gap inner outer world)
Chalmers: gap exists because of difference easy and hard problems
Easy problems = mechanisms of attention and behavioural control
Hard problems = how physical processes in brain cause subjective experiences
Freud: unconscious (id, ego, superego) and conscious interact to create personality and
motivation
Chapter 2
Nagel: understanding mental states caused by neurons firing
Phenomenality (Block) = what makes a state phenomenally conscious is that one can
describe what it is like to be in that state
Block: reflective consciousness = higher order reflection about thinking about thinking
Peirce and Lewis: qualia = fundamental building blocks of sensory experience
Consciousness inessentialism = consciousness exists but does nothing
Nagel: no solution to hard problem
