Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Possible Worlds', 'Mind, Brain and the Quantum' and 'Naturalizing the Mind'

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6 ideas

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: Halting the slide into panpsychism is the major advantage of holding that phenomenal qualities can exist unsensed.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.170)
     A reaction: Presumably unsensed phenomenal qualities would explain the discovery that we seem to make decisions before we are conscious of what we intend to do. That result certainly implied that consciousness had no real function.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: If we assume that mental events are located in time, then it follows immediately, given special relativity, that they are also in space.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73)
     A reaction: A powerful point. Of course, there might (you never know) be something which exists in time but not space (and thoughts clearly exist in time), but (as in Hume's argument against miracles), dualism will overthrow your other basic beliefs about nature.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: Philosophical behaviourism is an absurd theory. Practically the only philosophers who ever held it, at any rate in its crude form, were certain logical positivists.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.25)
     A reaction: I presume Lockwood's target here is eliminativist behaviourism, as opposed to methodological behaviourism (which is a reasonable practice to adopt), and 'black box' behaviourism (which has been superseded by functionalism).
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske]
     Full Idea: A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind.
     From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2)
     A reaction: Presumably brain events bring the world into the mind, so the world must be mentioned in explaining the mind. Maybe 'externalism' sounds grand, but is stating the boringly obvious. Explanations of mind need no mention of external particulars.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske]
     Full Idea: My thesis is that all mental facts are representational facts, and that all representational facts are facts about informational functions.
     From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Prol)
     A reaction: The first half of the thesis seems a bit difficult to disagree with, but that a fact is 'represented' may not be the essence of that fact. The biggest mystery is the content, not its representation. And everything is 'information' about everything else.
Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: A favourite example of identity theorists is the identification of flashes of lightning with electrical discharges.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.71)
     A reaction: Personally I prefer the analogy of the mind being like a waterfall - a non-mysterious physical process which has dramatic properties of its own. If minds must keep busy in order to be minds, they must be processes.