Philosophical foundations

Question 1

Dualism

Answer 1

The world consists of two different types of substances.
Physical - matter, energy, stars, mountains etc
Mental - subjective, emotions, thoughts etc

Question 2

Monism

Answer 2

The world consists of only one substance.

Disagrees about the ultimate nature of the fundamental substance.

Question 3

Interactionism

Answer 3

Two-way causal interaction

Bottom-up and top-down casual pathways.

Question 4

Cartesian dualism

Answer 4

The mind is fundamentally different form and independent of our body, and may continue to exist without the physical matter.
Mind and body are in intimate connection through the pineal gland.

Question 5

Epiphenomenalism

Answer 5

Denies mental causation and says that the nonphysical mental reality cannot casually influence physical matter or brain activity.
But allows causation from the physical to the mental.
Conscious events are a dead end.
Gives no active role to our mental life

Question 6

Parallelism

Answer 6

Denies any causal relations.
Accepts that our external physical reality and och internal psychological reality are on total harmony and synchrony, a perfect correlation.

Question 7

Pre-established harmony

Answer 7

The physical and mental worlds are deterministic and everything is pre-determined.
‘‘God pushes the start buttons at the same time and there harmony will forever be preserved’’ - Gottfried Liebniz

Question 8

Occasionalism

Answer 8

The harmony between the two worlds are not pre-established, they are separately established for each event or occasion.
Believes that God rules over this.

Question 9

Materialism

Answer 9

Based on natural sciences and the modern scientific view of the world.
Main problem is to explain how consciousness fits in with the materialistic scientific picture.

Question 10

Eliminative materialism

Answer 10

Tries to eliminate the notion of consciousness from science.

If other theories and discoveries can be eliminated, so can consciousness since it isn’t hardly scientific at all.

Question 11

Reductive materialism

Answer 11

Tries to reduce consciousness to something that science can handle better.
Accepts that conscious mental phenomena exists, and argues that it is a physical entity or process in the brain.
Consciousness can be reduced to the brain.

Question 12

Microphysicalism

Answer 12

Only the lowest and most fundamental bottom level of physical reality is real.
The macroscopic world is only an illusion.

Question 13

Emergent materialism

Answer 13

Higher levels of physical phenomena can emerge from lower levels, which are built upon each other in levels of physical organization.

Question 14

Weak emergence

Answer 14

Once our theories can describe the lower levels of phenomena, we will be able to describe and explain the higher levels of phenomena.

Question 15

Strong emergence

Answer 15

We will never be able to understand or explain the mechanisms of emergence, and we will forever lack understanding of why the two realities correlate.

Question 16

Idealism

Answer 16

Mental reality is the primary reality, and physical matter is a mere illusion.
All that exists consist go conscious mental phenomena, and physical objects are illusions or constructs based on and dependent of the mental.

Question 17

Phenomenalism

Answer 17

We live in a dream world that vanishes when nobody is watching.
Matter is just a permanent possibility of sensation.

Question 18

Solipsism

Answer 18

Only my own sphere of consciousness exists

Question 19

Neutral monism

Answer 19

The universe is neither mental nor physical, it consists of a even more fundamental substance. Or one that include both in some primitive form.

Question 20

Double-aspect theory

Answer 20

The fundamental substance include a mental and a physical aspect, and therefore also does the world.

Question 21

Panpshychism

Answer 21

Everything physical is always coupled with mental features, and the two are inseparable, fundamental aspects of reality.

Question 22

Functionalism

Answer 22

The mind works according to an algorithm or a set of rules that describes how to transform sensory input information to behavioral output information.
The mind is distinct ant independent of the physical matter in the brain.
Says nothing about consciousness, subjectivity or qualia