Notes for Video 3: Is Mind Distinct from Body?

• Cartesian dualism: the mind (the "I think," cogito) survives methodic doubt: it is the thinking thing that does not depend on the body (whose existence can be doubted)
• Problem: How do the mind and body interact?
• Materialism (e.g., Hobbes): since all reality is simply matter in motion, that which thinks (the mind) must be a body
• Problem: what about emotions, feelings?
• Behaviorism (Ryle): there is no ghost in the machine, no spiritual mind in the body; mental states are simply behaviors or dispositions
• Cognitive science: the mind is an intricate computer. This can be shown using the Turing test
• Problems/objections:
  • Searle: understanding the meaning of language or experience involves more than simply manipulating syntax and symbols
  • Dreyfus: computers cannot identify relevance or exhibit common sense
• Neuroscientific reductionism--reducing all mental events as neurophysiological events in the brain (Churchland)--has been successful and is still promising
• Objection: reductionism finds only what it can see; it simply eliminates subjective experience or consciousness without explaining it