305:03 Cognition

Spring 2015

Dr. Julien Musolino

Announcements
_____________________________
Assignment # 1 due by Feb. 10 @
10:00pm

Reading: The last wall to fall

Attendance monitoring begins next

week

Course
Information
_____________________________

Where
we are
_____________________________
The big picture

The details

The implications

The past

The present

The future

Outline
_____________________________
The mind-body problem
Different views on the problem

Dualism

Idealism
Materialism

Mind/body
problem
_____________________________

Illustration
_____________________________

Mind/body problem
The two deepest questions
about the mind are:
What makes intelligence
possible?

What makes consciousness

possible?

Mind/body problem

Physical causes

Mental causes

Mind/body problem

Predicting the behavior of

billiard balls

Mind/body problem

Predicting the behavior of

people

Mind/body problem

New Mexico, September 06,

2012 middle of the desert

Mind/body problem
How can we predict that Jesse and Walt
will be in New Mexico, at that particular
spot in the desert, at 2:00pm on
September 06, 2012?

They must believe that

there is a drug deal at
that date, time and
location, intend to go,
think that the other
guys are going, etc.

Mind/body problem
Physical causes

Mental causes

Consciousness
_____________________________

Two separate realms?

Physical
realm

Mental
realm

Outline
_____________________________
The mind-body problem
Different views on the problem

Dualism

Idealism
Materialism

Illustration
_____________________________

Dualism

Body

Mind

Dualism
Dualism is the concept that our mind is more than just
our brain. This concept entails that our mind has a nonmaterial, spiritual dimension that includes
consciousness and possibly an eternal attribute. One
way to understand this concept is to consider our self as
a container including our physical body and physical
brain along with a separate non-physical mind, spirit, or
soul.
[From All About Philosophy]

Dualism
Substance Dualism
(Cartesian Dualism)

Property dualism

Predicate dualism

Anubis: God of the dead

The
Egyptian
soul
_____________________________

A multifaceted soul:

The ib, or heart: weighed by Anubis

to determine its fate in the afterlife

The sheut, a persons shadow:

contained aspects of the person to
whom it belonged

The ka, a kind of vital essence: believed to leave the body at the
moment of death

The ba, someones personality: believed to survive death

The ren, someones name: believed to continue living as long as it

was spoken

Plato
on
the
soul
_____________________________
One of the early dualists soul and body
are different substances that can exist
independently of each other

The soul is a life soul

The soul originates in the world of the

dead, passes through the world of the living,
and returns to the world of the dead

420-ish BC-348ish BC

Plato
on
the
soul
_____________________________
Rational

420-ish BC-348ish BC

Appetitive

Spirited

Aristotles De Anima

Aristotle
384BC 322BC

On the soul

Aristotles souls

Nutritive
Soul

Sensitive
Soul

Rational
Soul

Medieval Cosmology

Medieval Cosmology

Dantes Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321)

Medieval Worldview
Soul

Body

Heavens

Soul
Body
Earth

Birth
of
the
modern
soul
_____________________________

Early scientific revolution

Rejection of the Aristotelian approach

The mechanical philosophy

No more forms, essences, or other

occult forces at least for the physical
world

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

Birth
of
the
modern
soul
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

The
body
as
a
machine
_____________________________

The
body
as
a
machine
_____________________________

Birth
of
the
modern
soul
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

I desire that you consider that all the functions that I

have attributed to this machine, such as the digestion of
food, the beating of the heart and the arteries, the
nourishment and growth of the bodily parts,
respiration, waking and sleeping; the reception of light,
sounds odours, smells, heat the impression of the
ideas of them in the organ of common sense and the
imagination, the retention or imprint of these ideas in
the memory I desire, I say, that you should consider
that these functions follow in this machine simply from
the disposition of the organs as wholly naturally as the
movements of a clock or other automaton follow from
the disposition of its counterweights and wheels

Birth
of
the
modern
soul
_____________________________
To explain these functions, then, it is not
necessary to conceive of any
vegetative or sensitive soul, or any other
principle of movement or life,
other than its blood and its spirits which are
agitated by the heat of the fire
that burns continuously in its heart, and
which is of the same nature as those
fires that occur in inanimate bodies.
Ren Descartes
1596-1650

Limits
of
the
mechanical
philosophy
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

Two
substances
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

Res Extensa

Res Cogitans

The
pineal gland
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

The pineal gland

The
evil demon
_____________________________

Ren Descartes
1596-1650

Cartesian theatre

Cat burning

Cat burning
Cat burning was a form of zoosadistic entertainment in
17th century Paris, France. In this form of entertainment,
people would gather dozens of cats in a net and hoist them
high into the air from a special bundle onto a bonfire.
According to Norman Davies[1], the assembled people
"shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain,
were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized."[2]
-- Wikipedia

A universal idea?
Most people, at most times, in most
places, at most ages have believed that
human beings have some kind of soul
(Intro, p.1)

Dualism today

Dualism in religion

Pope John Paul II

Today some new findings lead us toward the
recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In
fact it is remarkable that this theory has had
progressively greater influence on the spirit of
researchers, following a series of discoveries in different
scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of
these independent studieswhich was neither planned
nor soughtconstitutes in itself a significant argument in
favor of the theory.
Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996

Pope John Paul II

Pius XII underlined the essential point: if the origin of
the human body comes through living matter which
existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by
God
As a result, the theories of evolution which regard the
spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or
as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible
with the truth about man.
Message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 22 October 1996

2009
Harris Poll (2,303 American adults)
____________________________
God
82%
Miracles
76%
Heaven
75%
Angels
72%
Survival of the soul after death

71%

The devil

60%

Darwins theory of evolution

45%

Historical
trends
_____________________________

Dualism
in
the
US
_____________________________
Barna Research Group (2003) 81% of Americans believe in
an afterlife and 76% believe in Heaven

Gallup polls taken between 1997 and 2004 reveal that belief
Heaven among Americans ranges between 72% and 83%

2008 Pew report found that 74% of Americans believe in an

afterlife

According to a 2009 Harris poll, 71% of Americans believe in

the survival of the soul after death in 2013, this number went
down to 64%

Popular illustration

Dualism
today
_____________________________

The afterlife

Eben Alexander

The afterlife

Eben Alexander

Dualism today

Dualism today

Paul Bloom
Dualism as the default, intuitive position

Outline
_____________________________
The mind-body problem
Different views on the problem

Dualism

Idealism
Materialism

The problem of interaction

Mental

Physical

The problem of interaction

Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680)
Corresponded with Descartes for
seven years until his death in 1650

The problem of interaction

The interaction problem

Jaegwon Kim

The interaction problem

G1

G2

Q: How can we decide that it is G1 that killed A (and not

B) and that it is G2 that killed B (and not A)?

The interaction problem

A1: Find a continuous causal path
between G1 and A and between G2 and
B
A2: Find a paring relationship, R, such
that R holds of G1 and A and G2 and B,
but not of G1 and B and G2 and A.
A2: R could be something like properly oriented, at the
appropriate distance.
A2: R is defined in terms of the space.
Q: How can we decide that it is G1 that killed A (and not
B) and that it is G2 that killed B (and not A)?

The interaction problem

Q: How can we decide that Immaterial Mind 1 made C move (and not D) and
that it is Immaterial Mind 2 that made D move (and not C)?

The interaction problem

A1: Find a continuous causal path
between G1 and A and between G2 and
B
A2: Find a paring relationship, R, such
that R holds of G1 and A and G2 and B,
but not of G1 and B and G2 and A.
A2: IM 1 is closer to C than D or more properly positioned?
A2: IM 1 somehow perceives C but not D
Q: How can we decide that IM 1 made C move (and not
D) and that it is IM 2 that made D move (and not C)?

The interaction problem

Material domain

Immaterial domain

Framework of space

???

The ghost in the machine

Gilbert Ryle
(1900-1976)

Ryles analogy

Library

Physics department

Student union

Gym

Category error
University

Mind

The interaction problem

Dualism today

Joshua Greene
Harvard

Most people are dualists (Bloom, 2004).

Intuitively, we think of ourselves not as
physical devices, but as immaterial minds or
souls housed in physical bodies. Most
experimental psychologists and
neuroscientists disagree, at least officially.
The modern science of mind proceeds on
the assumption that the mind is simply what
the brain does
From Social Neuroscience and the Souls last stand

Idealism

What is real?

Idealism
Suppose there is no
material world out there
just the world of mental
events
Esse est percipi
George Berkeley
(1685-1753)

Idealism

So its literally all in our

minds
How about our minds
themselves?

George Berkeley
(1685-1753)

They only exist in the

imagination of God!

The world

Mental

Physical

Idealism

Samuel Johnson
(1685-1753)

I refute him thus!

Idealism
Denying realism amounts
to megalomania (the most
widespread occupational disease of
the professional philosopher)

Karl Popper
(1902-1994)

Idealism today
Makes for great sci-fi
material but

George Berkeley
(1685-1753)

Subjective

Nonsensical implications

Unfalsifiable

Largely abandoned today

Idealism today

Nick Bostrom,
Oxford University

The simulation
argument

Idealism today

Idealism today

Idealism today

Outline
_____________________________
The mind-body problem
Different views on the problem

Dualism

Idealism
Materialism

Materialism

Thinking
Meat?
_____________________________

Terry Bisson

Materialism

Materialism
_____________________________
You, your joys and your sorrows, your
memories and your ambitions, your sense
of personal identity and free will, are in
fact no more than the behaviour of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their
associated molecules

Francis Crick

Materialism
Most people are dualists (Bloom, 2004). Intuitively,
we think of ourselves not as physical devises, but as
immaterial minds or souls housed in physical bodies.
Most experimental psychologists and neuroscientists
disagree, at least officially. The modern science of
mind proceeds on the assumption that the mind is
simply what the brain does. We dont talk much
about this, however. We scientists take the minds
physical basis for granted. Among the general public,
its a touchy subject.

Joshua Greene
Harvard

From Social Neuroscience and the Souls last stand

Materialism
Materialism is a set of related theories which hold that all entities
and processes are composed of or are reducible to matter,
material forces or physical processes. In general, the metaphysical
theory of materialism entails the denial of the reality of spiritual
beings, consciousness and mental or psychic states or processes, as
ontologically distinct from, or independent of material changes or
processes. Since it denies the existence of spiritual beings or forces,
materialism typically is allied with atheism or agnosticism.
[From: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. 1998
Routledge, New York]

Materialism

The mind is what the

brain does

Early materialism

Democritus (460370 BC)

Lhomme machine

Julien de la Mettrie
(1709-1751)

Materialism today
To defeat scientific materialism and its
destructive moral, cultural, and political
legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations
with the theistic understanding that
nature and human beings are created by
God.

Scientific consensus
Everyone knows about the rocky relationship between science
and theology brought about by the revolutionary proposals of
Copernicus and Darwin. Fewer people know about an equally
revolutionary scientific innovation that is currently under way
among neurobiologists. This revolution in brain research has
completely rewritten our understanding of who we are

Back cover, What about the soul? Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology

A
critique of materialism
_____________________________

Noam Chomsky

Intuitive, and coherent

notion of body =
everything is undertable
through physical

A
critique of materialism
_____________________________
That gravity should be innate, inherent, and
essential to matter, so that one body may act
upon another, at a distance through vacuum,
without the mediation of anything else is to
me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man
who has in philosophical matters a competent
faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.

Isaac Newton (16421727)

A
critique of materialism
_____________________________

Noam Chomsky

What is the concept of body that finally emerged? The

answer is that there is no clear and definite concept of body.
If the best theory of the material world that we can construct
includes a variety of forces, particles that have no mass, and
other entities that would have been offensive to the
scientific common sense of the Cartesians, then so be it:
We conclude that these are properties of the physical world,
the world of body. The conclusions are tentative, as befits
empirical hypotheses, but are not subject to criticism
because they transcend some a priori conception of body.
There is no longer any definite conception of body. Rather,
the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with
whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the
purposes of explanatory theory.

An
asymmetry
_____________________________

Conceptions of matter change, but they are defined positively

An
asymmetry
_____________________________

Defined positively

Defined negatively
Non physical so
we cant
understand it.

Summary/analogy
_____________________________

Materialism
_____________________________

Portable CD player

Dualism
_____________________________

Portable radio set

Radio signal

Idealism
_____________________________

Radio signal

Interesting books

Interesting books

Interesting books

Interesting books

Interesting books

Interesting books