Task 2 Flashcards
Easy problem
- not about experience, but about something measurable
- brain processing
- solvable in the near future
- how does brain process environmental stimulation?
- how does it integrate info?
- how do we produce reports on internal states?
Hard problem
- how does consciousness exist?
- how to explain qualia
- why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?
3 constraints Chalmer tries to obey
1) take consciousness seriously
- for Chalmer it is obvious that there is something further that needs explaining here, but to others it seems acceptable that there is not (that there is no consciousness)
2) take science seriously
- Chalmers tried to keep his ideas compatible with contemporary science, but did not restrict his ideas to what contemporary scientists find fashionable
3) take consciousness as a natural phenomenon
- problem of consciousness is at the boarder of science and philosophy
- > may be a scientific problem that requires philosophical methods
- > some form of dualism
- > materialism is not sufficient for consciousness
Qualia
- mental state is conscious if it has a qualitative feel (an associated quality of experience)
- Qualia = these qualitative feels/phenomenal qualities
2 major things need to be explained
1) existence of consciousness (why, how?)
2) character of conscious experiences (why do i have this sort of complex experience? Why is seeing red like this, rather than like that?)
The mind
-internal basis of behavior
phenomenal concept of mind
- conscious experience
- the way it feels
- first person data
- what it is like for a subject to have that feature
- sensation
- every phenomenal state is a psychological, but not vice versa
- we use psychological qualities to explain phenomenal qualities
psychological concept of mind
- causal or explanatory basis of behavior
- what is does
- brain processes that relate to phenomenal
- third person data
- perception: process where cognitive systems are sensitive to environment
mental state
- those relevant to the causation and explanation of behavior
- what matters it the role a mental state plays in a cognitive economy (not if it has conscious quality)
Belief
-beliefs = propositional attitudes , attitude to propositions concerning the world
can be divided in 2 aspects:
1) deflationary concept: purely psychological, not involving conscious experience
2) inflationary concept: conscious experience is required for truly believing a proposition
easy part of the 2 mind-body problems
- psychological aspects
- explain organization of the physical system that allows it to react to environmental stimulation and produce behavior in the appropriate sorts of way
hard part of the 2 mind-body problems
- phenomenal aspects
- how could a physical system give rise to conscious experience?
- link between physical and conscious has 2 parts: 1- link between physical and psychological, 2- psychological and phenomenal
-> mind-mind problem ( psychological mind and phenomenal mind)
functions of psychological consciousness ??
1) awakeness (we say a person is conscious as another way of saying they are not asleep)
2) Introspection
3) Reportability: ability to report the contents of our mental states
4) self-consciousness
5) attention (person is conscious of smth when paying attention to it)
6) voluntary control (behavioral act is performed deliberately -> conscious)
7) knowledge ( if you know a fact, you are conscious of it)
Consciousness and awareness
- psychological property associated with experience itself/phenomenal consciousness
- whenever there is consciousness, there is awareness -> not the other way around
- i can be aware there is a table in front of me without being conscious about it
The mind-body problem
What is the problem if body and mind are the same?
- no life after death
- no room for traditional soul
- problem for religion
