What is Mind? Flashcards
(29 cards)
What is the Mind-Body Problem
The problem of describing and explaining the relationship between our mental states and our physical states
Ontological
Looking at the nature of things
What is the Hard Problem of conciousness
The problem of analysing and explaining the phenomenal properties of consciousness, “what it is like to” undergo a conscious experience
Phenomenal Conciousness
A form of consciousness with a subjective, experimental quality as involved in perception, sensation, emotion
Awareness of ‘what it is like’ to experience such a mental phenomena
Intentionality
The property of mental states whereby they are directed towards an “intentional object”- they are ‘about’ something
How do Intentional States represent the world
Represent the world in a particular and partial way
Intentional Content
Intentional object + asceptual shape
Intentional Object
What an intentional mental state represents
Aspectual Shape
The way the intentional object is being represented
What is “attitude”
The psychological verb we would use for the intentional state
Examples of an “attitude”
Hating or Don’t like
Phenomenal Property
The properties of an experience which gives it its distinctive experimental quality and which are apprehended in phenomenal consciousness
Qualia
Phenomenal properties which are understood as intrinsic, non-intentional and introspectively accessible properties of mental states
Intrinsic Property
A property something has in and of itself
Non intentional
Non relational property
Introspection
Turning our attention to our own minds
Substance
An entity which does not depend upon another entity for its continued existence
What can a substance have in relation ontology
It has ontological independence and properties are dependent on substances
What are the three objections to Descartes’s indivisibility argument?
- The mind can indivisible
- Not all things that are physical are divisible
- Minds may not be considered substances
How does Descartes respond to objection 1 of his indivisibility argument?
He states that the mind may be functionally divisible but he persists that the mind is not spatially divisible
Explain the proposition “Water is not H2O” and why it’s wrong
This is not logically possible for us; however at one point when humans didn’t know that water and H2O were the same substance- it was.
What is logically possible changes with our concepts
Define “clear” in terms of metaphysics of mind
You understand and grasp all of the information contained within the concept or proposition and how different bits of information within the concept or proposition and how the different bits of information within the concept or proposition relate to one another
What does “distinct” mean in terms of metaphysics of mind
You understand how those related bits of information distinguish that concept or proposition from other concepts or propositions
What is the essential property of the mind
Thought
