A quick response to "philosophy of mind" arguments

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Joe Levine mentions several popular anti-physicalist arguments regarding the philosophy of mind. If any of these arguments are accepted, one has to concede that our consciousness or our mental states are 'something more' than a certain physical function.

Not entirely convinced by these arguments, I try to tackle them very briefly.

Arguments against functionalism

One physicalist position is that a mind can be made out of human neurons but also out of other materials ; it's the interrelations and functions that do matter.

The inverted qualia is the first counter-argument. Suppose someone's inner mental states have inverted colors - she would identify green as 'green' (by talking about these terms with other humans), but have an inner response to a red color when seeing this. There's nothing functionally changed, but her color experience is supposedly changed, although she will not notice it (because she doesn't see the differences with the experience of others). So functionalism can't explain differences in experience. My Judgment : not convincing. The argument states that something is different between the inverted person's and others' experience. But what exactly? Would she consider 'green' (our 'red') as a more agressive colour? And what exactly is unfunctional about this? I don't see it.

The absented qualia is a related argument. Take as a 'massive consciousness' a phone network in China which is built up as if a consciousness. Surely this isn't enough to constitute as consciousness? My judgment: provided that the phone network has enough links and interactions to function as an actual consciousness, I don't see why the phone network can't be seen as consious and even conscious experience in so far as information is in a certain way - in a way of consciousness - transmitted.

Conceivability argument

What about Chalmers' zombies? Chalmers' point is that it is conceptually possible, that is conceivable, for a being to exist with all the physical pieces in place (cells, neurons, senses and perception and so on), but without conscious experience. So physicalism is not sufficient? My judgment: Not convincing. It is a similar argument to the following idea: conceive two initial states of a computer simulated billiard table with some balls. Both initial states show the same movement of the balls when initiated. Now, if I tell you that the first billiard table's balls got their movement from a conditioned feedback loop, the second table's balls from the conscious intentions of the balls, then these statements could easily be taken to be analogous or non-analogous. Consciousness could be taken as physical or non-physical. The zombie case is conceivable, but did it show that our consciousness or conscious experience must be non-physical? No.

There certainly is a distinction between our "first person" perspective and a "third person" perspective. But I don't see why the cause and substrate of both can't be physical in nature.


Reacties (2)

Beste Tsunami,

Het beste argument tegen fysicalisme vind ik nog altijd het gedachte-experiment van Frank Jackson: stel je voor, het meisje Mary, dat vanaf de geboorte wordt opgesloten in een kamer met enkel wit en zwart, en geen uitizcht naar buiten. Mary is intelligent, en beschikt over alle literatuur over kleurperceptie die er maar te krijgen is. Met haar achttiende weet zij er alles van. Als dan de deur naar buiten open gaat, en ze ziet de wereld in al zijn kleurenrijkdom, zegt ze dan: "Ja, ik wist wel hoe het er uitziet". Of zegt zij: "Oh, zijn dat nou kleuren?".

Maar ook dat is geen argument voor de opvatting dat er meer moet zijn dan alleen een fysisch substraat.

   

Ik was inderdaad te 'quick', kweetal, enkele dagen later las ik over Jackson's argument dat inderdaad wat eleganter is. Maar ja, ook daar blijf ik op mijn honger zitten.

   

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