Psychology 101: Cognition & Intelligence 2025
LECTURE 1: THEORY OF MIND & CONSCIOUSNESS
What is “Consciousness”?
Awareness
internal & external stimuli.
Constant Fluctuation.
Different Levels.
The “hard problem” of
Consciousness
Ongoing question
Problem of other minds
Subjective experience
Where does Consciousness
come from?
We live in a physical universe.
How does subjective consciousness arise?
How can we study consciousness?
Attempts at definition:
“What it is like”-ness (Thomas Nagel, 1974)
Qualia.
“Mind”
What is the relationship between mind and
body?
Philosophical Argument #1:
Materialism
We live in a physical universe
We can know the universe by describing physical
things.
The
physical story
consciousness.
currently
does
not
explain
Maybe we do not have all the pieces of the puzzle
yet.
Eventually,
we will be able to explain mental
phenomena in physical terms.
Philosophical Argument #1: Materialism
Brain and “mind” are identical:
One-to-one correlation
BUT: mental states can be produced by different
brain regions
Focus instead on observing the physical world
Looking
at brains shows us nothing about
consciousness, so it is an idea / is not real.
Dennett (1991): “consciousness” = output of a
complex information processing system
Philosophical Argument
#2: Functionalism
Causal relationship between mental states and their effects.
The physical medium is not as important as the effect it
produces.
BUT: Why are some functions = experience and others not?
E.g., Artificial Intelligence
Rules for manipulating symbols = syntax
Syntax is enough for it to appear as if the effect has been
produced.
How does AI work?
It looks like AI is thinking, but AI does not understand meaning
(Semantics)
Minds have semantic properties
Philosophical Argument #3: Dualism
There
is nothing in the physical story that
explains consciousness
Either
what we know is incomplete, or
consciousness is not part of the physical
story.
Maybe reality consists of two types of “stuff”:
Physical stuff and Mental stuff
Substance Dualism
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Res extensa & Res cogitans
Mind / Body Dualism
Experience and consciousness are not physical
BUT:
If consciousness is different from the physical
world, how do we define, explain or describe it?
Also: How can something non-physical have effects
on the physical universe?
Property Dualism
There
is probably only physical ‘stuff’, but it can have
different qualities.
Consciousness emerges when the physical system achieves
a level of complexity.
There is something special about the physical structure that
allows for this.
Consciousness = Epiphenomenon.
BUT: If consciousness comes after complexity develops, it
cannot cause mental states.
Also: when does the system become complex enough?
So where does this leave us?
Back at the start:
We know consciousness is real because we experience it.
We
cannot explain consciousness based on a purely
physical story.
We
have no way of understanding consciousness as
something non-physical without magical thinking.
All that we can do is look at the things we associate with
consciousness:
sensation
& perception; attention; memory; learning;
intelligence; emotion; neuropsychology, etc.
But can we say that these things ARE consciousness?
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