Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Mapping the Mind' and 'Possibility'

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4 ideas

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception [Carter,R]
     Full Idea: Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception.
     From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.187)
     A reaction: This is only a speculation, but it is an effect which can be caused by brain injury, and dualists should face the possibility that this evidence (prized by many dualists) can have a physical explanation.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R]
     Full Idea: The pattern of brain activation during, say, a word retrieval task is usually similar enough among the dozen or so participants who typically take part in such studies for their scans to be overlaid and still show a clear pattern.
     From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17)
     A reaction: This doesn't surprise me, though it could be interpreted as supporting type-type identity, or as supporting functionalism. Armstrong and Lewis endorse a sort of reductive functionalism which would fit this observation.
Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R]
     Full Idea: The nuts and bolts of thinking - holding ideas in mind and manipulating them - takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex.
     From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.312)
     A reaction: Keep this firmly in view! Imagine that the skull is transparent, and brain activity moves in waves of colour. Dualism would, in those circumstances, never have even occurred to anyone.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism
Analysing mental concepts points to 'inclusionism' - that mental phenomena are part of the physical [Jubien]
     Full Idea: We have (physicalist) 'inclusionism' when the mental is included in the physical, and mental phenomena are to be found among physical phenomena. Only inclusionism is compatible with a genuine physicalist analysis of mental concepts.
     From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.5)
     A reaction: This isn't the thesis of conceptual dualism (which I like), but an interesting accompaniment for it. Jubien is offering this as an alternative to 'reductive' analysis, translating all the mental concepts into physical language. He extends 'physical'.