Philosophy of Mind
Panpsychism: All is mind/conscousness.
 Dualism: Material body with immaterial
mind/soul/consciousness.
 Physicalism (materialism): whatever exists
has physical (empirically detectable)
properties.

Problems for Dualism
Causal interaction problem: How does an
immaterial substance interact with the
material body? All known causal
connections involve material interaction.
 Neural dependence of mental phenomena:
Why do drugs and brain damage impair
mental function if the mind is a distinct
immaterial entity?

Difficulties for Dualists

Explanatory impotence of
dualism: Neuro-science
has uncovered vast
amounts of information
about brain functioning
and its correlations with
mental states. What can
the dualist tell us about
spiritual substance and its
relation to behavior?

Coherence with
evolutionary theory: A
physicalist view of mind
explains the development
of higher mental abilities
in terms of the evolution
of increasingly complex
brain structures; how will
the dualist account for
this correlation?
Zombies and Mutants


Zombies look just like us, their brains are just
like ours, they behave exactly as we do, but they
are not conscious.
Mutants are also just like us, respond to external
stimuli as we do; they are conscious, but their
subjective experiences are different. They react
to painful stimuli as we do, but instead of a pain
sensation they have the experience hearing
Pablo Ramirez yelling “Golazo.”
A problematic consequence of
dualist metaphysics.
If mind and matter are thought
of in the Cartesian way, then
there would be wide-open
possibilities of a bizarre kind.
So, since this is intolerable we
should rethink the conception
of how things are. A better
conception of mind and its
place in nature should
foreclose these possibilities.
(Simon Blackburn)

Mutant or Zombie?
Physicalisms



Behaviorism (Ryle):
Mental states reduce to
patterns of behavior.
Identity theory: Mental
states = brain states.
Functionalism: Mental
states reduce to a set of
causal relations between
a perceiver, environment,
other mental states, and
behavior.
Eliminative materialism

Our current vocabulary
for referring to mental
states (belief, desire, etc.)
is the product of folk
psychology, not science.
Hence, these terms will
be eliminated and
replaced by descriptions
of neurophysiology.
Paul Churchland