Mind: Summary of the book, slides, notes and practicals.
1. Mind-body problem.
What are we actually talking about? The mind. Do we have one? Yes, obviously, as we feel, think,
have emotions, experience. But what is the mind? What’s its place in our nature and world? ->
Less obvious.
1.1 Preliminary characterisation of the mind.
1. three mental states:
a) phenomenal/conscious experience,
b) cognition,
c) emotion
2. two properties:
a) qualia/what-it-is-likeness,
b) intentionality/aboutness
3. propositional attitudes have intentionality
4. not everything is conscious all the time
Conscious/phenomenal experiences:
➔ Coffee: one cup tastes different from the other, or a Starbucks® Vanilla iced coffee for instance.
➔ There is a qualitative difference.
➔ Experiences have qualitative aspects, we call them qualia (sing. quale). Or as Nagel calls it:
what-it-is-likeness.
Cognition:
➔ possess intentionality (It is the property of aboutness)
➔ Then there is such a thing as a propositional attitude: you may have different stances or attitudes
towards a proposition. e.g. I like coffee. I love coffee. Evident is that they have intentionality: they
are about coffee.
Emotion:
➔ It possesses both qualia and intentionality
➔ So an emotion like being in love not only has a phenomenal feel, it is about something as well.
★ The relation between the conscious and the unconscious mind is that the states of the
unconscious mind can become conscious given the right circumstances. e.g. personal
memory.
- A lot of our memories are unconscious until I ask you for it.
, - Who did you first kiss with?
- That representation of that person has just become conscious, congratulations.
★ However, your brain does more. Many states, like the brain state that regulates your
heartbeat, is not a mental state because they lack the ability to become conscious states.
1.2 Mind-body problems.
Problem I: How do qualia fit into the physical world?
Problem II: How does intentionality fit into the physical world?
➔ Confusion about consciousness and cognition.
➔ Cognition is used for mental states that have aboutness.
➔ A phenomenal state is by definition conscious, so consciousness is the default term for
phenomenal/conscious states.
➔ Clearly, this does not mean that cognitive states are never conscious states.
2. Substance-Dualism.
1. Separability thesis
2. Descartes’s line of thinking. Don’t miss any step in your explanation
3. res cogitans, res extensa + properties
4. interaction problem
The separability thesis: Mind can exist and function separately from the physical world.
Proponent: Descartes.
➔ He agreed with Montaigne: I do not claim anything, what do I even know? We know nothing
for sure.
➔ Descartes accepted this in his own words: I doubt everything there is to doubt.
- Distrust everything, even humans. Since they had not always told the truth, they could
no longer be trusted as a source of true knowledge: they might be wrong, or lie.
- Same goes for the senses. If our senses sometimes deceive us, like they can in the
case of visual illusions, how can we be sure they do not deceive us all the time?
- Although: he cannot doubt his own existence. Because if you would doubt that, you think
(you doubt). And if you think, you exist (for how else can you think).
- Cogito ergo sum. Descartes is a thinking thing.
➔ Next claim of Descartes: The claims that he perceives clearly and distinctly have to be true.
- Descartes says that when he examines the contents of his mind, he sees that he has
ideas.
- One of those ideas is that of God, a perfect being. Descartes is imperfect, so this idea has
to come from a perfect being: God. Proof for the existence of God.
- God will not deceive Descartes.
- Since God will not deceive Descartes, his ideas about his body and the rest of the
physical world must actually originate from those corporeal things themselves, therefore,
they also must exist.
, - Conclusion: Descartes is both mind and body.
Two substances:
1) the res cogitans, which has only property that it thinks
2) res extensa, which has the essential property that it is extended, which means that it is
three-dimensional: it has a place in space.
- Descartes says they do not need each other to exist.
Interaction problem: How can the physical body and the non-physical mind interact with each
other?
How can the soul of a man determine the particles of his body so as to produce voluntary actions?
➔ Descartes tried to answer it: It happens all in the pineal gland, where the soul and body
can influence each other. But how?
➔ Because all physical events have physical causes. One thing bumps into another. Only one
thing can take up a certain place in space.
➔ Descartes: It is God who is responsible for the interaction. How does God do this?
➔ Occasionalism: God sees the mental event of someone who wants to lift his arm, and then
causes the changes in the body that correspond to this mental event, so that the person
indeed raises his arm.
➔ Parallelism: If we want to speak and the tongue moves, then the will accompanies the
motion of the tongue without them having a causal relation. The will and the movement
both depend on God who has made them in such a way that they run parallel to each other.
Modern arguments in favour of Substance-Dualism:
alleged ability of some people to gain information about a person, an event, or an object in a way
that does not use the normal senses. -> Cold reading is a skill. Only anecdotes are no evidence.
Electronic Voice Phenomena: you set a radio between two frequencies and listen to the noise that
comes out of it. Perhaps you’ll hear words or sentences. -> Pareidolia: A phenomenon of
recognizing meaningful patterns in random stimuli, and different sense are vulnerable to it.
Out Of Body Experience: Soul can detach from body and still see things. -> All fake, nothing has
ever been proven.
Burden of Proof: if you claim something: prove it.
Conclusion of Substance-Dualism: not taking science seriously.
3. Idealism.
1. only res cogitans
2. primary qualities do not exist, as they have to be perceived
The obvious solution to this interaction problem is to deny this intuitively plausible idea of
substance dualism and defend a substance monism.
1. Mind-body problem.
What are we actually talking about? The mind. Do we have one? Yes, obviously, as we feel, think,
have emotions, experience. But what is the mind? What’s its place in our nature and world? ->
Less obvious.
1.1 Preliminary characterisation of the mind.
1. three mental states:
a) phenomenal/conscious experience,
b) cognition,
c) emotion
2. two properties:
a) qualia/what-it-is-likeness,
b) intentionality/aboutness
3. propositional attitudes have intentionality
4. not everything is conscious all the time
Conscious/phenomenal experiences:
➔ Coffee: one cup tastes different from the other, or a Starbucks® Vanilla iced coffee for instance.
➔ There is a qualitative difference.
➔ Experiences have qualitative aspects, we call them qualia (sing. quale). Or as Nagel calls it:
what-it-is-likeness.
Cognition:
➔ possess intentionality (It is the property of aboutness)
➔ Then there is such a thing as a propositional attitude: you may have different stances or attitudes
towards a proposition. e.g. I like coffee. I love coffee. Evident is that they have intentionality: they
are about coffee.
Emotion:
➔ It possesses both qualia and intentionality
➔ So an emotion like being in love not only has a phenomenal feel, it is about something as well.
★ The relation between the conscious and the unconscious mind is that the states of the
unconscious mind can become conscious given the right circumstances. e.g. personal
memory.
- A lot of our memories are unconscious until I ask you for it.
, - Who did you first kiss with?
- That representation of that person has just become conscious, congratulations.
★ However, your brain does more. Many states, like the brain state that regulates your
heartbeat, is not a mental state because they lack the ability to become conscious states.
1.2 Mind-body problems.
Problem I: How do qualia fit into the physical world?
Problem II: How does intentionality fit into the physical world?
➔ Confusion about consciousness and cognition.
➔ Cognition is used for mental states that have aboutness.
➔ A phenomenal state is by definition conscious, so consciousness is the default term for
phenomenal/conscious states.
➔ Clearly, this does not mean that cognitive states are never conscious states.
2. Substance-Dualism.
1. Separability thesis
2. Descartes’s line of thinking. Don’t miss any step in your explanation
3. res cogitans, res extensa + properties
4. interaction problem
The separability thesis: Mind can exist and function separately from the physical world.
Proponent: Descartes.
➔ He agreed with Montaigne: I do not claim anything, what do I even know? We know nothing
for sure.
➔ Descartes accepted this in his own words: I doubt everything there is to doubt.
- Distrust everything, even humans. Since they had not always told the truth, they could
no longer be trusted as a source of true knowledge: they might be wrong, or lie.
- Same goes for the senses. If our senses sometimes deceive us, like they can in the
case of visual illusions, how can we be sure they do not deceive us all the time?
- Although: he cannot doubt his own existence. Because if you would doubt that, you think
(you doubt). And if you think, you exist (for how else can you think).
- Cogito ergo sum. Descartes is a thinking thing.
➔ Next claim of Descartes: The claims that he perceives clearly and distinctly have to be true.
- Descartes says that when he examines the contents of his mind, he sees that he has
ideas.
- One of those ideas is that of God, a perfect being. Descartes is imperfect, so this idea has
to come from a perfect being: God. Proof for the existence of God.
- God will not deceive Descartes.
- Since God will not deceive Descartes, his ideas about his body and the rest of the
physical world must actually originate from those corporeal things themselves, therefore,
they also must exist.
, - Conclusion: Descartes is both mind and body.
Two substances:
1) the res cogitans, which has only property that it thinks
2) res extensa, which has the essential property that it is extended, which means that it is
three-dimensional: it has a place in space.
- Descartes says they do not need each other to exist.
Interaction problem: How can the physical body and the non-physical mind interact with each
other?
How can the soul of a man determine the particles of his body so as to produce voluntary actions?
➔ Descartes tried to answer it: It happens all in the pineal gland, where the soul and body
can influence each other. But how?
➔ Because all physical events have physical causes. One thing bumps into another. Only one
thing can take up a certain place in space.
➔ Descartes: It is God who is responsible for the interaction. How does God do this?
➔ Occasionalism: God sees the mental event of someone who wants to lift his arm, and then
causes the changes in the body that correspond to this mental event, so that the person
indeed raises his arm.
➔ Parallelism: If we want to speak and the tongue moves, then the will accompanies the
motion of the tongue without them having a causal relation. The will and the movement
both depend on God who has made them in such a way that they run parallel to each other.
Modern arguments in favour of Substance-Dualism:
alleged ability of some people to gain information about a person, an event, or an object in a way
that does not use the normal senses. -> Cold reading is a skill. Only anecdotes are no evidence.
Electronic Voice Phenomena: you set a radio between two frequencies and listen to the noise that
comes out of it. Perhaps you’ll hear words or sentences. -> Pareidolia: A phenomenon of
recognizing meaningful patterns in random stimuli, and different sense are vulnerable to it.
Out Of Body Experience: Soul can detach from body and still see things. -> All fake, nothing has
ever been proven.
Burden of Proof: if you claim something: prove it.
Conclusion of Substance-Dualism: not taking science seriously.
3. Idealism.
1. only res cogitans
2. primary qualities do not exist, as they have to be perceived
The obvious solution to this interaction problem is to deny this intuitively plausible idea of
substance dualism and defend a substance monism.
