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Is Consciousness a Brain Process

Am I my brain?. Your brain on philosophy. This isn't a scientific question. We can agree that every mental state is correlated with some brain statePhilosophy doesn't deal with this issue--it's a matter for empirical scienceThe philosophical question is whether, given the results of empirical research, the relation between mental states and brain states is identity..

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Is Consciousness a Brain Process

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    1. Is Consciousness a Brain Process? U. T. Place With some reflections on Dennett

    2. Am I my brain?

    3. This isnt a scientific question We can agree that every mental state is correlated with some brain state Philosophy doesnt deal with this issue--its a matter for empirical science The philosophical question is whether, given the results of empirical research, the relation between mental states and brain states is identity.

    4. Why the answer isnt a no-brainer My brain and I dont have all the same properties E.g. I weigh (a lot) more than my brain Its not clear that I am wherever my brain is Could I be a brain in a vat? If my brain were in a vat, would I be there?

    5. Hamlet contemplating Yorick

    6. Where Hamlet goes there goes Dennett?

    7. Where Yorick goes there goes Dennett?

    8. Where Fortinbras goes there goes Dennett?

    9. Is it an illusion?

    10. Are mental states brain states? Indiscernibility problems Spatial location of experiences Privileged access Qualia Necessity of identity problems Multiple realizability Physicalism, if true, is contingent

    11. The Identity Theory: pre-history Rylean behaviorism Mental state talk is talk about behavioral dispositions Motivation: were in the business of analyzing ordinary language Problem Works for, e.g. believing, wanting, etc. But not for feely mental states

    12. Missing Qualia

    13. Reversed Qualia

    14. Privileged Access

    15. Inner States Behaviorism cant account for psychological talk that seems to refer to inner states. An acceptance of inner processes does not entail dualism The thesis that consciousness is a process in the brain cannot be dismissed on logical grounds

    16. Are mental states brain states? Mental state talk cant be analyzed as brain state talk because The relation between mental states and brain states is contingent But there are other models

    17. His table is an old packing case

    18. But theres a difference Most tables arent old packing cases and most old packing cases arent tables Consciousness is a process in the brain is a general or universal proposition applying to all states of consciousness

    19. Logical and ontological independence Typically, were justified in arguing from the logical independence of two expressions to the ontological independence of the states of affairs to which they refer. Since when two characteristics invariably go together their linkage becomes embodied in a rule of language But there are exceptions

    20. A cloud is a mass of droplets Clouds are always masses of droplets But this hasnt become a rule of language because We never make the observations necessary to verify the statement this is a cloud, and those necessary to verify the statement This is a mass of tiny particles in suspension, at one and the same time

    21. When are two sets of observations observations of the same event? We treat the two sets of observations as observations of the same event, in those cases where the technical scientific observations setprovide an immediate explanation of the observations made by the man in the street. In the case of the cloud we could in principle make the connection by moving toward or away from the cloud. The brain state/mental state case is different, so lets try another analogy

    22. Lightening is a motion of electric charges

    23. Mental states are brain states If this account is correct it should follow that in order to establish the identity of consciousness and certain processes in the brain, it would be necessary to show that the introspective observations reported by the subject can be accounted for in terms of processes that are known to have occurred in his brain.

    24. But what about qualia?!!?! Feely mental states seem to have a character that the underlying brain states which account for them dont have. E.g. the firing of C-fibers doesnt feel like anything but Pain hurts! My mental imagery has a character that brain states dont have.

    25. The Phenomenological Fallacy The mistake of supposing that when the subject describes his experiencehe is describing the literal properties of objects and events on a peculiar sort of internal cinema The phenomenological fallacydepends on the mistaken assumption that because our ability to describe things in our environment depends on our consciousness of them, our ability to describe things in our environment our descriptions of things are primarily descriptions of our conscious experiences.

    26. Seeing a green afterimage

    27. Seeing a green afterimage: topic-neutral description

    28. Does this solve the qualia problem? Not if zombies are naturally possible. If reversed spectra are naturally possible we have a dilemma If same mental state only if same brain state then multiple realizability is a problem If not then it seems we can have same brain state, same sincere reports, but different mental states Is that possible?

    29. Spectrum Reversal

    30. You just forget youre wearing them These contacts dont do anything to brain states presumably. Years later, having forgotten that Im wearing them, all of my behavioral dispositions are back to normal. Does it make sense to say that even so I may still be seeing things differently from the way I used to?

    31. Contingent Identity Every thing is necessarily identical to itself. But some true identity statements are contingent. How can that be? If a mental state in some sense is a brain states, is that the is of identity? Correlation in and of itself is not identity.

    32. The Moral Science does not answer philosophical questions. Philosophy does not contradict science. When the scientific questions are answered, the conceptual (philosophical) questions begin.

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