Philosophy of mind

Question 1

Dualism

Answer 1

Decartes, there is a mind and a body consistent of different entities. Types:

1. Interactionalism
   - Mental and physical interact, eg via the pineal gland
2. Epiphenomenalism
   - Physical effects cause mental events, but mental vents have no effect on physical events. Passive bystander idea (some extent Libet)

Question 2

Monoism

Answer 2

There is only one entity, could be just mind or just body, You can translate the mind into the body (same substance). Lot of types

1. Idealism (Solipsism)
   - There is only the mental, physical is a mental imagination and produces all we perceive
2. Physicalism
   - There is only the physical. View held by most neuroscientists
   - aka materialism, which consists of more types

Question 3

Materialism

Answer 3

Idea that there only is material, causing all (thoughts, physical world etc). We should be able to explain anything mental by physical mechanism

1. Reductive
   - all mental phenomena can be redued to physical processes
2. Eliminative
   - Our notion of mental phenomena is flawed, doesn’t actually exist. EG free will
3. Behaviorism
   - Disregard all the mental, only look at behaviour (behaviour causes mental not vice versa)
4. Functionalism
   - Mental phenomena can be realised into different physical structures (brains, computers, aliens), as long as they are analogously related to each other, to external word and to behaviour