Lecture 2 1/22/2009

The nature of mind

 
 

Proper conception of what a physical world was.

Colors flavors odors, where do those fit in.

– sensations produced in the mind by physical atoms.

 
 

Knowledge of your own existence more certain than knowledge of any material thing.

Can conceive of self without body, so body and self are separate

Matter is divisible but the self is indivisible.

 
 

 
 

This proposition,

I am, I exist.

 
 

Physics provides just one hypothesis among many about

 
 

What shall I now say that I am,

 
 

When I am supposing that there is some supremely powerful and,

if it is permissible to say,

Malicious deceiver,

 
 

Who is deliberately trying to trick me in every way he can?

 
 

Can I now assert that I possess

Even the most insignificant of attributes

Which I have just said belong to the nature of a body?

 
 

At last I have discovered it

-thought

-this alone is inseparable from me

• I am still thinking
  
• Maybe nothing in the physical world is as I think it is
  
• Thinking is what I have
  
• That is something you can't bring to doubt
  

   
   

  Am I really aware of a self
  

  Rather than just lots of particular thoughts?
  

• Stray thoughts running through your head
  
• Do you really find soul?
  
• Hypothesized entity?
  
• Take a piece of wax, melt it, wax had one color and shape before melting, after has a distinct diff color and shape, so is it the same wax?
  
  • Diff presentation of same thing
    

   
   

  Second argument
  

  "the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct, since they are capable of being separated"
  

  You can conceive of mind without body:
  

  Couldn't it be that the material world is entirely an illusion?
  

  You and your mental states would still exist.
  

• Is it you who are continuing to exist but none of your physical remains
  
• You still exist
  

  You can conceieve of body without mind:
  

  "I might consider the…of the mind"
  

  • Anticipation of the zombie
    
  • Your neighbor moves in this way, but how do u know that they have a mind
    

     
     

  You can conceive of mind and body coming apart
  

  This isn't because there's something you don't know
  

• You can imagine something physically by somethting conscious
  

  Knowledge off other minds
  

  Do we have knowledge of other people's mental states in the same way as we have knowledge of our own mental states
  

  He says, it's always a hypothesis what mental states the other person has
  

• All you're finding out about the other person is body and movement
  
• Mind is not something you know w/ certainty
  
• With you own mental state, you have a direct knowledge
  

   
   

  Explaining mental in terms of physical
  

  The mental can't be explained in terms of the physical, since the physical could be as it is whether or not a mind is present
  

   
   

  Notice the implications of the point about what's possible for:
  

  Knowledge of other minds
  

  Explaining mental in terms of physical
  

  Nothing to lose by going for dualism
  

   
   

  3rd argument
  

   
   

  "the body is by its very nature always divisble, while the mind is utterly indivisible"
  

   
   

  If you are aware of A, and you are aware of B, then you are aware of both of them
  

• Suppose aware of headache and footache, then if u are aware of both these things at the same time, its not thtat u are aware of this one and that one, u can encompass both with a single act of mind. Which is worse? Is the headache lasting longer? You can compare them
  
• If you have a bunch of visual sensations, you can encompass all of it in a simultaneous act of the mind
  
• Aware of individual elements, your mind encompasses everything in a single unity
  

   
   

  It doesn't make sennse to say
  

  "with one part of my mind, I'm aware of a, with another part I'm aware of b.
  

  But I can't compare a and b because I'm aware of them with diff parts of my mind"
  

   
   

  It makes sense to say
  

  With a part of my brain I'm responding to a, with another part I'm responding to b
  

  But my brain can't compare a to b because diff parts of the brain are responding to each of them
  

   
   

  We can't explain the unity of the mind in biological terms
  

   
   

• Conscious and unconscious
  
  • Two diff entities here
    
  • Two diff minds
    
  • In communication
    
  • Each with their own unity
    
  • Single mind combining both
    

  About the one that doesn't work
  

  • Both in a single act of the mind
    
  • Can compare the two entities
    

     
     

  Have own agendas
  

• Same mind if you can compare
  
• Or see that unconscious impulses are variations and aspects of the conscious mind
  

   
   

   
   

  The advance dualism represents
  

   
   

  The pupil of the eye which gets through a very small hole theimages of the bodies situated beyond said little hole,
  

  Always gets them upside-down
  

  Butt always the visual power sees them upright as they are.
  

   
   

  Until Descartes, people looked for a biological…
  

   
   

  Leonardo da Vinci's theory about imaging…
  

  Image do have to be flipped, the mind can just conceive images right side up.
  

   
   

  How TV works, (Martian)
  

  They arent physical, there is a special TV stuff that produces everything.
  

   
   

  1sst argument
  

  How can postulating a special kind off stuff explain this?
  

   
   

  2nd
  

  Can we really form a full conception of self apart from body?
  

  Cf. trees on a summer afternoon and biochemical structure.
  

  I can conceive fully of a tree without tthinking of it as biological structures, therefore trees arent biochemical structures.
  

   
   

  3rd
  

  The "stuff" can be divided to form different people.
  

  So why does making the people from that stuff mean they cant themselves be divided?