Introduction to Philosophy of Mind Lecture Notes 2025

Introduction to Philosophy of Mind 2025 Qualia (phenomenology) of conscious states ∙Qualia = The subjective experience/what it is like from the inside. E.g. Pain– there is something that it is like to be in pain. There is something that it is like to see red, taste a lemon, feel sad,...

Introduction to Philosophy of Mind 2025 Qualia (phenomenology) of conscious states ∙Qualia = The subjective experience/what it is like from the inside. E.g. Pain– there is something that it is like to be in pain. There is something that it is like to see red, taste a lemon, feel sad, etc. ∙Functionalism = mental states are ‘what they do’ within a system, leaves out their ‘phenomenal’ quality, A note on terms ∙‘Consciousness’ ∙‘Conscious states’ ∙‘Mind’ ∙‘Mental states’ ∙There may be distinctions to be made, but I am not making them, and you don’t have to worry about the distinctions. POP QUIZ ∙Do you think that Functionalism gives a satisfactory account of mental states such as pain? (Yes/No) Give a short reason for your answer. Nagel’s ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ ∙Consciousness = The Hard Problem. ∙What is consciousness? - “an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something it is like for the organism.” What is it like to be a bat? ∙We believe that there is something that it is like to be a bat. ∙(There is also something it is like to be a dog or a whale, but not a table.) ∙But how can we find out what it is like? ∙“nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine” what it would be like to be a bat. Bats ∙Use echolocation/sonar… ∙Hang upside down ∙Fly ∙Eat insects ∙Live in caves ∙I can partly imagine what it would be like for me to do those things, but I cannot know what it is like for the bat to be a bat. The subjective nature of mental states ∙Mental states are different to physical states because there is something it is like for the subject to have them. ∙Pain feels like something to the subject. ∙Sense impressions are how things appear. (Your experience of blue, for example, is not something I can have access to.) ∙The states of the mind are, by nature, subjective states. Objective vs Subjective ∙Objective facts: Facts that can be observed and understood from many points of view. ∙Subjective facts: Are necessarily from one viewpoint only. ∙Trying to understand subjective facts cannot mean trying to be more objective about it. ∙The more objective, the further away from the subjective fact we get. Physicalism and the mind ∙Physicalism is the idea that the mind is made up of physical stuff. ∙If the mind is physical stuff, then it should be something that we can understand objectively, through science for example. ∙But the mind is subjective and not objective in nature.