ch7

Question 1

self

Answer 1

the feeling of being an individual with private experience, feelings and beliefs, who interacts in coherent and purposeful ways with the environment

Question 2

mind-body problem

Answer 2

issue of how the mind is related to the brain; three main views: dualism, materialism, functionalism

Question 3

dualism

Answer 3

view of the mind body problem relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body

Question 4

plato - opinion

Answer 4

soul exists before and survives the body

Question 5

descartes - opinion

Answer 5

soul is immaterial and formed the thinking part of the person

Question 6

cartesian dualism

Answer 6

theories in which the mind is seen as radically different from the body and independent of the biological process in the brain

Question 7

three conditions before free will

Answer 7

• there is a choice
• the act must originate in the agent
• the act must be the outcome of rational deliberation

Question 8

problems with dualism

Answer 8

the interaction problem, the existence of unconscious control processes

Question 9

who was the first one to point out unconsciousness problem of dualism

Answer 9

Locke

Question 10

4 types of monads Leibniz

Answer 10

simple monads, sentient monads, rational monads, supreme monads

Question 11

simple monads

Answer 11

the bodies of all matter, unconscious and unorganized perception, keeping in line with the existing harmony of univere

Question 12

santient monads

Answer 12

in living organisms, capacities for feeling pleasure and pain, voluntary focus of attention but can’t understand their experiences

Question 13

rational monads

Answer 13

conscious minds of humans, capacity of apperceptions

Question 14

supreme monads

Answer 14

control and motivate all other monads, God

Question 15

materialism

Answer 15

view about the relationship between the mind and brain that considered the mind a brain in operation

Question 16

problems with materialism (book)

Answer 16

identity problem, how can the mind be a by-product of the brain

Question 17

identity problem

Answer 17

the difficulty the materialistic theory has to explain how two events can be experienced as the same despite the fact that their realization is different

Question 18

functionalism

Answer 18

what makes something a mental state of a particular type doesn’t depend on its internal constitution but on the way it functions

Question 19

memes

Answer 19

information units proposed by Dawkins that reproduces itself according to the principles of evolutionary theory (variation, selection, replication)

Question 20

Marr - information processing levels

Answer 20

o Computational level – researchers postulate ideas about how a system can generate output representations from input
o Algorithmic – try to specify the algorithms necessary to perform the process from the computational level
o Implementation level – aim to make the algorithms work on specific physical system

Question 21

symbol grounding problem

Answer 21

the finding that representations used in computations require a reference to come external reality in order to get meaning

Question 22

embodied cognition

Answer 22

interactions between the human body and the environment form the grounding of human cognition

Question 23

four sources of embodied cognition

Answer 23

o Human physiology – humans can do some actions in some situations but others not because of bodily limitations (adults can use a chair to fend off an angry dog but a toddler couldn’t)
o Evolutionary history – by natural selection the meaning of a particular situation for a particular animal becomes associated with a set of actions that enhance successful coping
o Practical activities during reasoning – when faced with a problem humans often keep trying out various actions
o Socio-cultural situatedness – actions allowed by objects depend on the social context
- The human mind isn’t just a Turing machine – knowledge isn’t fully independent

Question 24

block - two types of consciousness

Answer 24

access and phenomenological

Question 25

access consciousness

Answer 25

access conscious information can be reported by the patient, used for reasoning and acted upon intentionally

Question 26

phenomenological consciousness

Answer 26

human experiences possess subjective qualities that seem to defy description; experiences have a meaning that goes beyond formal report (semantics instead of syntax)

Question 27

global workspace model

Answer 27

model that explains the role of consciousness by analogy to a theatre: consciousness is meant to make some information available to the whole brain, so that the various background processes can align their functioning to what’s going on centrally

Question 28

who did the Chinese room

Answer 28

Searle

Question 29

Mary experiment

Answer 29

Jackson

Question 30

quaila

Answer 30

qualities of conscious thoughts that give the thoughts a rich and vivid meaning, grounded in interactions with the world

Question 31

zombie thought experiment

Answer 31

– thought experiment proposed by Chalmers to illustrate that consciousness is more than the working of the brain or the implementation of information on a Turing machine because it involves a subjective component with qualia

Question 32

hard problem

Answer 32

name given by Chalmers to refer to the difficulty of explaining in what respects consciousness is more than accounted for on the basis of functionalism

Question 33

two more issues with dualism

Answer 33

causal closure problem, brain damage problem

Question 34

causal closure problem

Answer 34

if every physical event has a physical cause where does the mind enter - conservation of energy

Question 35

token identity

Answer 35

theory identity of brain states with mental states but defined so that they encompass all the differences