Philosophy of Mind

This is Unit Six of Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind. A dentist's drill causes tissue damage and nerve signals, and it also causes hurting. The damage and the signals can be measured. The hurting is felt, by exactly one person, and no instrument reaches it. How those two things relate is the question this whole unit answers, over and over. Two features of mind make the question hard, and every theory has to deal with both. Thoughts are about things, and matter does not seem to be about anything. And experiences have a felt quality that a complete functional description appears to leave out. The unit proceeds by demolition. Each answer is built, then broken by an objection, and the next answer is constructed to survive that objection. Watch the sequence: it is one of the clearest examples in philosophy of a debate making genuine progress without reaching an ending. By the end you will be able to do five things. One: state the problem, and the two features of mind any answer has to account for. Two: state the interaction problem, and say what a weaker dualism avoids. Three: state the objection from other creatures, and the answer built to survive it. Four: state the knowledge argument, and the reply that grants no new fact. Five: locate any account with three questions asked in order.

Three entries of setup. The question itself, then the two features of mental life that make every answer difficult — and it is worth carrying both, because different theories in this unit fail on different ones.

The question.

Philosophy 0220 The Mind-Body Problem

Damage, signals, and hurting. The first two are measurable and the third is felt. Whether these are one thing described twice or genuinely two is what every theory ahead answers.

The first hard feature.

Philosophy 0221 Intentionality

Thoughts and hopes are directed at things; the seawater itself is directed at nothing at all. Note the term is not about planning — fearing something counts, with nobody intending anything.

The second.

Philosophy 0222 Qualia

A complete diagram of the taste receptors still leaves out the taste. That remainder — how it is for the one having it — is what the term names.

The oldest answer, and the objection that has followed it ever since — put to its author by a correspondent who saw the difficulty faster than he did, and which he never satisfactorily answered.

The answer.

Philosophy 0225 Substance Dualism

Mind and body as two different kinds of stuff. The route in came through Unit Two: he could doubt his body and could not doubt his thinking, and concluded the thinker is a separate sort of thing.

The objection.

Philosophy 0226 The Interaction Problem

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia asked how something without extension moves a muscle — a thing with no surface has nothing to push with, and nothing to be pushed. He never settled it.

A retreat that keeps what dualism wanted while giving up what caused the trouble. And then a version that follows the logic further than most people are willing to, and pays a price that may be self-defeating.

The retreat.

Philosophy 0227 Property Dualism

A single kind of stuff bearing two kinds of property — the chemistry of a painting and its beauty. Holding to one substance avoids the worst of the previous objection, and leaves the question of how physical matter comes to bear such properties.

The version with the price.

Philosophy 0228 Epiphenomenalism

Experiences are real and do nothing — produced by the brain, affecting no outcome. Your pain never made you flinch; the signals did that. And if experiences cause nothing, they never caused anyone to mention them, which is a difficult position to state.

The opposing programme, and the reasoning behind it is a bet on a track record: life, lightning and heat all eventually gave way to physical explanation. Then its first serious attempt, and the objection that finished that attempt off.

The programme.

Philosophy 0230 Physicalism

Whatever exists is physical, mental states included, however else they may be described. The confidence comes from history — every domain that looked to need something extra eventually did not.

The first attempt.

Philosophy 0231 Behaviorism

Mental states as patterns of conduct and dispositions — wanting coffee being shorthand for seeking it, choosing it, and complaining without it. No hidden interior required.

And the objection.

Philosophy 0232 The Perfect Actor Objection

A flawless actor produces every sign of pain without it; a population trained to suppress every wince has pain with none of the signs. On this definition the second group has no pain, which nobody accepts.

The next attempt models itself on a genuine scientific pattern — the moment when two things turn out to be one thing. It is a serious proposal, and it runs into a difficulty about creatures built differently from us.

The proposal.

Philosophy 0233 The Identity Theory

Mental states are brain states, in the way lightning turned out to be electrical discharge. Not two things reliably found together — one thing, discovered under a second description.

The objection.

Philosophy 0234 The Multiple Realizability Objection

Creatures with radically unlike nervous systems all feel pain. If pain were one specific neural process, only things with that process could have it — so it is not identical to any one of them.

The answer built to survive that objection, and it does so by changing what kind of thing a mental state is — from a substance or a process to a position in a network. Then the argument that has been aimed at it ever since.

The answer.

Philosophy 0235 Functionalism

A mental state is defined by what typically causes it, what it typically causes, and how it relates to other states — with the material playing that part left open. Neurons, octopus arms, or in principle something else.

The argument aimed at it.

Philosophy 0236 The Chinese Room

Someone follows rules to exchange symbols and produces fluent conversation in a language they do not know. From outside, understanding; from inside, none — so running the right procedure is not, by itself, understanding.

Three arguments that the physical account is incomplete, aimed at the felt quality from Topic One. One reply that grants the experience and denies any new fact was learned. And then the way the whole difficulty is now usually stated.

The formulation.

Philosophy 0240 What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

A creature is conscious when there is some way it is for that creature. Learn the entire physics of echolocation and you still do not know how echolocating is from inside — the fact is real and the description misses it.

The argument.

Philosophy 0241 The Knowledge Argument

A scientist learns every physical fact about colour without seeing any. Released, she sees a red tomato — and if she learns something, the physical facts were not all the facts.

The reply.

Philosophy 0242 The Ability Reply

She acquires abilities rather than facts — to recognise, imagine, and remember. Something is genuinely gained, and it sits in capacities rather than in propositions, so the physical account loses nothing.

And how it is now stated.

Philosophy 0243 The Hard Problem

Explaining behaviour, reporting, and control is one kind of task. Explaining why any of it comes with experience is another. The first kind is called easy as a term of art — those problems take generations. The second is a different sort of difficulty.

A separate problem the unit is now equipped for. You have inspected exactly one mind. Every other one is reached by inference, and the standard inference generalises from the smallest sample induction permits.

The problem.

Philosophy 0248 The Problem of Other Minds

Grimaces are visible and reports are audible; the pain itself has one witness and never anyone else. Every other inner life is inferred rather than observed, however obvious it feels.

The standard inference.

Philosophy 0249 The Argument from Analogy

Others resemble me in body and behaviour, and mine comes with experience, so theirs probably does. Note the sample: it generalises from one case, which is the weakest induction allows.

And a proposal about machines.

Philosophy 0250 The Turing Test

An interrogator types with a person and a machine and cannot reliably say which is which. The proposal was that this answers the question about machines thinking — or, on a fair reading, retires it.

One procedure to close, and the order is what does the work — because the first answer people give locates them among three different theories at once, and only the follow-up questions separate them.

Three questions, in order.

Philosophy 0255 Diagnosing a Mind-Body Position

Ask whether the account takes everything real to be physical; if not, whether it holds to one substance or two; and if so, what it says mental states are. Saying pain is physical leaves three theories standing — the order is what narrows it.

Five things you can now do. You can state the problem and the two features any answer must handle: thoughts are about things and matter is not, and experience has a felt quality that a functional description appears to leave out. You can state the interaction problem — an unextended thing has no surface to push with — and say that keeping to one substance avoids its hardest form while leaving a question behind. You can state the objection from other creatures, and the answer built to survive it: define the state by the part it plays and leave the material open. You can state the knowledge argument and the reply that grants the experience and denies the fact — what she gains fits in capacities rather than propositions. And you can locate any account with three questions in order, because the first answer alone leaves three theories on the table.