Nova: Secrets of the Mind
Neuroscience Meets
the Philosophy of Mind
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Consciousness
The subjective character of
experience.
What it’s like to be something.
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Big Question of Consciousness
 (Blakemore)

Is consciousness a special added extra that we
conscious humans are lucky to have, or is it
something that necessarily comes along with all
those evolved skills of perceiving, thinking, and
feeling? (Consciousness: A Brief Introduction, p. 11)

Chalmers: YES!
Nagel: We can’t know
Dennett: NO!


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The “Explanatory Gap”
Seems like something that materialism
can’t capture (or explain)
 Chalmers:
“neuroscience cannot provide a
full account of conscious experience”
 Easy Problem: “the objective mechanisms
of the cognitive system” (p. 81)
 Hard Problem: “the question of how
physical processes in the brain give rise to
subjective experience.”
The “Explanatory Gap”,
con’t
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Seems like something that materialism
can’t capture (or explain)
 Nagel:
Science is objective,
consciousness is subjective.
 Two
completely different approaches, science
can’t appropriately study consciousness.
 We also have to expect that some facts will be
unknowable.
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Neuroscience
Collecting data on brains
 Dr.
Ramachandran
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Our questions:
What can the data provided by
Neuroscience show us about
the mind/body problem?
What can neuroscience tell us
about conscious experience?
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Re: Mind/Body Problem
Seems to:
 provide “clues about how certain brain
structures control fundamental thought
processes”
 Could
this fill in the “explanatory gap”?
 Indicate
that what we think can affect
the brain’s processing

Cf. phantom limbs and mirror box
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Re: Consciousness
Seems to show:
 that
some elements of conscious
experience might be necessary for
human interaction.
Does this answer the “Big question”?
Does this answer Chalmers’ “hard
problem”?
Does it help with Nagel’s challenge?