Im new here and I was just noticing how many arguments on this board are actually related to the mind/brain debate.
Token Identity Theory is a cutting edge (in terms of philosophiical times) idea it essentially prooves via logic and the distinction between Phyiscal (Extensional, Extentitional) and Mental (Intentsional, Intentional) that Mental events are identical with some physical events or another.
Now I was wondering if any of you who are familiar with this logical proof can present any objections, be it to the logic itself or to the concept that logical proofs are proofs at all.
I look forward to your responses.
P.s. if you don’t know what the hell im on about look up Brentanos work on The intentional in-existence of the object and Fregers distinction between Meaning and Reference as well as Token Identity Theory.
i dont want to read books. if you want people besides imp to respond (if you want a discussion) spell it out so those of us with small attention spans can ask meaningful questions and respond.
what does this mean? an array of conductors can move photons about to create the same decison making process that is in a humans brain?
or the decisions that humans make are also made on astronomical scales? or the decision we make follow some concrete law?
Sorry the proof is very long and complex and has taken myself many months of study to understand/follow. I am really not able to spell it out simply on this board.
What it essentially boils down to is a logical proof that mental relationships are not in fact relationships at all but rather physical properties of the person.
There is therefore no logical distinction between physical and mental events.
p.s. I would have thought that anyone taking an interest in philosophy should seriously look into this, it is a very important and modern theory with some quite incredible ramifications.
And I can provide a proof that any materialist position is simply untenable.
It’s no good saying you have a proof that some materialist position is correct if you cannot give the arguments vindicating this claim. I cannot see any point in this thread.
This thread is not intended to inform you of the philosophical position, take a Philosophy BA for that;
Tbjis is intended for people with prior knowledge of the theory with possible objections.
Quite frankly if you dont know what im thinking about you should find out, if you dont bother learning about moder philosophy then you are wasting your time.
"Mention should here be made of influential criticisms of the identity theory by Saul Kripke and David Chalmers respectively. It will not be possible to discuss them in great detail, partly because of the fact that Kripke’s remarks rely on views about modality, possible worlds semantics, and essentialism which some philosophers would want to contest, and because Chalmers’ long and rich book would deserve a lengthy answer. Kripke (1980) calls an expression a rigid designator if it refers to the same object in every possible world. Or in counterpart theory it would have an exactly similar counterpart in every possible world. It seems to me that what we count as counterparts is highly contextual. Take the example ‘water is H20’. In another world, or in a twin earth in our world as Putnam imagines (1975), the stuff found in rivers, lakes, the sea would not be H20 but XYZ and so would not be water. This is certainly giving preference to real chemistry over folk chemistry, and so far I applaud this. There are therefore contexts in which we say that on twin earth or the envisaged possible world the stuff found in rivers would not be water. Nevertheless there are contexts in which we could envisage a possible world (write a science fiction novel) in which being found in rivers and lakes and the sea, assuaging thirst and sustaining life was more important than the chemical composition and so XYZ would be the counterpart of H20.
Kripke considers the identity ‘heat = molecular motion’, and holds that this is true in every possible world and so is a necessary truth. Actually the proposition is not quite true, for what about radiant heat? What about heat as defined in classical thermodynamics which is ‘topic neutral’ compared with statistical thermodynamics? Still, suppose that heat has an essence and that it is molecular motion, or at least is in the context envisaged. Kripke says (1980, p. 151) that when we think that molecular motion might exist in the absence of heat we are confusing this with thinking that the molecular motion might have existed without being felt as heat. He asks whether it is analogously possible that if pain is a certain sort of brain process that it has existed without being felt as pain. He suggests that the answer is ‘No’. An identity theorist who accepted the account of consciousness as a higher order perception could answer ‘Yes’. We might be aware of a damaged tooth and also of being in an agitation condition (to use Ryle’s term for emotional states) without being aware of our awareness. An identity theorist such as Smart would prefer talk of ‘having a pain’ rather than of ‘pain’: pain is not part of the furniture of the world any more than a sense datum or the average plumber is. Kripke concludes (p. 152) that the
apparent contingency of the connection between the physical state and the corresponding brain state thus cannot be explained by some sort of qualitative analogue as in the case of heat.
Smart would say that there is a sense in which the connection of sensations (sensings) and brain processes is only half contingent. A complete description of the brain state or process (including causes and effects of it) would imply the report of inner experience, but the latter, being topic neutral and so very abstract would not imply the neurological description.
Chalmers (1996) in the course of his exhaustive study of consciousness developed a theory of non-physical qualia which to some extent avoids the worry about nomological danglers. The worry expressed by Smart (1959) is that if there were non-physical qualia there would, most implausibly, have to be laws relating neurophysiological processes to apparently simple properties, and the correlation laws would have to be fundamental, mere danglers from the nomological net (as Feigl called it) of science. Chalmers counters this by supposing that the qualia are not simple but unknown to us are made up of simple proto-qualia, and that the fundamental laws relating these to physical entities relate them to fundamental physical entities. His view comes to a rather interesting panpsychism. On the other hand if the topic neutral account is correct, then qualia are no more than points in a multidimensional similarity space, and the overwhelming plausibility will fall on the side of the identity theorist.
On Chalmers’ view how are we aware of non-physical qualia? It has been suggested above that this inner awareness is proprioception of the brain by the brain. But what sort of story is possible in the case of awareness of a quale? Chalmers could have some sort of answer to this by means of his principle of coherence according to which the causal neurological story parallels the story of succession of qualia. It is not clear however that this would make us aware of the qualia. The qualia do not seem to be needed in the physiological story of how an antelope avoids a tiger.
People often think that even if a robot could scan its own perceptual processes this would not mean that the robot was conscious. This appeals to our intuitions, but perhaps we could reverse the argument and say that because the robot can be aware of its awareness the robot is conscious. I have given reason above to distrust intuitions, but in any case Chalmers comes some of the way in that he toys with the idea that a thermostat has a sort of proto-qualia. The dispute between identity theorists (and physicalists generally) and Chalmers comes down to our attitude to phenomenology. Certainly walking in a forest, seeing the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, the red of the track, one may find it hard to believe that our qualia are merely points in a multidimensional similarity space. But perhaps that is what it is like (to use a phrase that can be distrusted) to be aware of a point in a multidimensional similarity space. One may also, as Place would suggest, be subject to ‘the phenomenological fallacy’. At the end of his book Chalmers makes some speculations about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. If they succeed then perhaps we could envisage Chalmers’ theory as integrated into physics and him as a physicalist after all. However it could be doubted whether we need to go down to the quantum level to understand consciousness or whether consciousness is relevant to quantum mechanics."
Well, normally people would be expected to at least give a link to any magnificent proof of some claim they might have. Can’t imagine you getting much discussion going if you make no attempt whatsoever to justify your claim. {shrugs}
thats great mr.15-posts-and-i-know-all-about-this-board dont teach philosophy. what did you expect the responses to be doing for you? something inherently different from “teaching” because you know certain pieces of knowledge and those who require “teaching” know fewer pieces?
yuxia is rather simple. it is a theory, and it has no major flaws (at least that i am aware of), it is self coherent.
if one accepts the premises then one can say it is correct. if one does not accept the premises, then one can say it is an interesting theory.
imp has kindly supplied you with some pointers to sources of criticism. precisely what more do you expect ? you picked a rather large chunk of modern philosophy and threw it at some people on a forum, something like asking our oppinion on the state of zambia.
The identity between physical states and mental states is one that I don’t really agree with. I think that physical states and mental states are quite separate but this has a lot to do with Davidson’s rejection of identity of types.
There are a lot of different discussion of token identity theory, which specific arguments should we examine? I’ll go digging to see if there is a copy of Davidson’s argument online in the original.
The second aspect of Davidson’s elimination of this contradiction appeals to me. I think that excluding mental states from strict causal laws is absolutely key. This sort of appeals to my general notion of human freedom and how it relates to the consciousness.
Ultimately, it is the project against reduction of mental events to physical that appeals to me.
sorry about this I have confused everyone, I was really asking if anyone had any objections to an aspect of philosophy mind based on the meaning / reference distinction that logically proves this not whether anyone actually objected to the theory itself.
My bad.
Oh p.s. for those who are interested in this I am writing a very brief summary that I will post when it is done.
Dear yuxia,
I am interested to read your proof and further dicuss this issue. As I understand it, token identity theory is primarly a modified version of type identity theory. This modification came about because of some refutations of indentity theory resulted in an acceptance of property dualism, which materialists aim to avoid. Furthermore token-identity theory then leads into functionalism. Primarly, both of these theories acknowledge the difficulty in making a direct relationship between mind states and brain states. To avoid this issues they propose that states are indenticle if they have the same causal basis and final output behaviour.
I have some refutations for these theories, but it is probably best that you outline you take on token identity theory so as we are on the same page and can move the discussion forward.
and I am still working on outlining this logical proof, complex though it is.
As a brief prelude:
Can I please ask everyone are you not aware of the proof that stems from firstly the distinction in meaning and reference outlined by Freger?
And the Logical Reparsing that is required by Brentano’s “The Intentional In-Existence of the Object”?
This is the proof I will discussing further once, my post is written.
I am somewhat materialistic myself. I would be highly interested in this proof. I view anything that happens in the universe to be the result of something. The current state of the universe is a function of it’s previous states through laws or interactions that we have empirical evidence of. Anything that the universe happens to be a function of is itself a thing or part of the universe (if you hold that the universe is a closed system, or that everything that exists exists within its bounds).
Things have inputs, outputs, and states.