A report on Philosophy of mind

A phrenological mapping of the brain – phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain although it is now widely discredited.

René Descartes' illustration of mind/body dualism.

Portrait of René Descartes by Frans Hals (1648)

Four varieties of dualism. The arrows indicate the direction of the causal interactions. Occasionalism is not shown.

The classic Identity theory and Anomalous Monism in contrast. For the Identity theory, every token instantiation of a single mental type corresponds (as indicated by the arrows) to a physical token of a single physical type. For anomalous monism, the token–token correspondences can fall outside of the type–type correspondences. The result is token identity.

John Searle—one of the most influential philosophers of mind, proponent of biological naturalism (Berkeley 2002)

Since the 1980s, sophisticated neuroimaging procedures, such as fMRI (above), have furnished increasing knowledge about the workings of the human brain, shedding light on ancient philosophical problems.

Branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body.

- Philosophy of mind

65 related topics with Alpha

Consciousness

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Sentience or awareness of internal and external existence.

John Locke, British Enlightenment philosopher from the 17th century

Illustration of dualism by René Descartes. Inputs are passed by the sensory organs to the pineal gland and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Thomas Nagel argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat." (Townsend's big-eared bat pictured).

Neon color spreading effect. The apparent bluish tinge of the white areas inside the circle is an illusion.

Square version of the neon spread illusion

These issues remain central to both continental and analytic philosophy, in phenomenology and the philosophy of mind, respectively.

A phrenological mapping of the brain. Phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain

Mind

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Set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena.

René Descartes' illustration of mind–body dualism.
Descartes believed inputs are passed on by the Sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Simplified diagram of Spaun, a 2.5-million-neuron computational model of the brain. (A) The corresponding physical regions and connections of the human brain. (B) The mental architecture of Spaun.

Computer simulation of the branching architecture of the dendrites of pyramidal neurons.

It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science.

René Descartes's illustration of dualism. Inputs are passed on by the sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Mind–body dualism

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Four varieties of dualist causal interaction. The arrows indicate the direction of causations. Mental and physical states are shown in red and blue, respectively.

Another one of Descartes' illustrations. The fire displaces the skin, which pulls a tiny thread, which opens a pore in the ventricle (F) allowing the "animal spirit" to flow through a hollow tube, which inflates the muscle of the leg, causing the foot to withdraw.

Cartesian dualism compared to three forms of monism.

In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable.

Hard problem of consciousness

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Problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences.

It has been accepted by philosophers of mind such as Joseph Levine, Colin McGinn, and Ned Block and cognitive neuroscientists such as Francisco Varela, Giulio Tononi, and Christof Koch.

René Descartes' illustration of mind-body dualism. Descartes believed inputs were passed on by the sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the immaterial spirit.

Mind–body problem

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Debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body.

Different approaches toward resolving the mind–body problem

The neuronal correlates of consciousness constitute the smallest set of neural events and structures sufficient for a given conscious percept or explicit memory. This case involves synchronized action potentials in neocortical pyramidal neurons.

Midline structures in the brainstem and thalamus necessary to regulate the level of brain arousal. Small, bilateral lesions in many of these nuclei cause a global loss of consciousness.

Neurophilosophy is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy of mind.

Artistic representation of a Turing machine.

Functionalism (philosophy of mind)

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In philosophy of mind, functionalism is the thesis that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role, which means, their causal relations with other mental states, sensory inputs and behavioral outputs.

Philosophical zombie

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A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

Property dualism

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Biological Naturalism states that consciousness is a higher level function of the human brain's physical capabilities.

Huxley explained mental properties as like the steam on a locomotive

Property dualism describes a category of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that, although the world is composed of just one kind of substance—the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties.

The "redness" of red is a commonly used example of a quale.

Qualia

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In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.

David Chalmers

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Chalmers on stage for an Alan Turing Year event at De La Salle University, Manila, March 27, 2012

David John Chalmers (born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.