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What has started with Descartes? What is and what is Not Consciousness?

Why this is a burning topic at the turning of XXI century: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Rationalism
The position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge, or more strongly that it is the unique path to knowledge. It is most oftener countered as a view in epistemology, where it is traditionally contrasted with empiricism.

Descartes
The birth of the modern age. The New Philosophers how he and his followers were called in the 17 century He was a reductionist: He claimed that all natural phenomena, terrestrial or celestial, organic or inorganic, no matter how striking their surface differences, can be fully explained in terms of, the elementary mechanics of the particles out which the relevant object are made up.

Born in France Extensively travelled Germany, Italy, Holland and France For some of that serving as a soldier He completed his first work in 1620 ( Rules for the direction of the understanding) 1634 Le monde Scientific theory of the origins and workings of the universe (withheld from publication) 1641 six Meditations on first philosophy 1644 Principles of Philosophy

Descartes is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy He was mathematician as well as philosopher

I think therefore I am Cogito ego sum


the proof of his own existence as a thinking being starting point of his research as certainty

Descartes sees the reality of the external world as the result of God creation. Knowledge of the world can be acquired through Pure Reason. Rational knowledge like mathematical-scientific understanding is the primary approach to world.

Meditations
Applies the method of doubt Position of near total-scepticism Existence of two distinct created substances ( anything which has independent existent) : CORPOREAL (BODY) NON-CORPOREAL (MIND) BODY-MIND DUALISM

Cartesian View: Dualistic View


The Division of the reality into two fundamental view: Thinking Stuff (Res Cogitans) - Extended Stuff (Res Extensa)

Descartes Dream
the night from 10 to 11 November of 1619 revolutionized Descartes comprehension of his world picture. In his nightmare, which he referred to as a form of wicked demon procreated illusion he saw the entire world as manipulation:

This meant that God was a beguiler. He says I must, as soon as possible, try to determine (1) whether or not God exists and (2) whether or not He can be a deceiver. Until I know these two things, I will never be certain of anything else. (Descartes, 1641, p. 289)

Meditations
Descartes asked whether it was doubt everything He conjectures that there might be some deceiver , supremely powerful, supremely intelligent who purposely always deceives me What is cannot be doubted: He is thinking even if the thoughts he thinks are false.

Thinking ( Cogitans)
All conscious mental activity He cannot be doubted as a thinking being I am , I exist; that is certain... It refres to a conscious being....

The light of reason


Descartes developed two arguments for the existence of God through the method of doubt 1. Argument Cosmological Argument Recognition of himself as a being who, in virtue of his doubts, is imperfect, yet who is able to entertain the idea God as a perfect being. Based on the scholastic principle of cause and effect argument: if the idea perfect ( thought), then its cause is likewise perfect.

The light of reason


2. Argument Ontological argument The idea of a most perfect being is of a being containing every perfection and thus containing reality in every degree containing every. The idea of a most perfect being therefore contains the idea of existence and this means that God essence contains his existence. GOD is perfect . He will not deceive the world therefore the physical world exist.
http://www.bookvideos.tv/videoid/1252

What has started with Descartes?


One of the greatest enquiries of philosophy is the attempt to interconnect the inside with the outside world. The tension lies in the inaccessibility of ones subjective experience, or in other words, how the body translates the mental processes of the mind.

What has started with Descartes?


The Body-Mind Problem Ontologically
is the study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general and of its basic categories and their relations .

1. What are mental states and processes?

2. What are physical states and processes?


3. How are the mental and physical related?

What has started with Descartes?

Epistemological: body-mind problem


Branch of philosophy that examines the nature of knowledge and attempts to determine the limits of human understanding. Central issues include how knowledge is derived and how it is to be validated and tested.

1. How do we know anything? 2. How do we know if something has a mind? (Problem of other minds) 3. How do I know my own mental states? (Problem of self-consciousness)

What has started with Descartes?

BODY-MIND PROBLEM
Physical-Mental
Outside-Inside Subjective-Objective Real Reality Virtual Reality (Illusion)

Dualism
The Division of the reality into two fundamental view: Thinking Stuff (Mind) - Extended Stuff (Body)

Descartes Body-Mind
Mind is really distinct from the Body
the mind can exist without the body and vice versa.

1) the mind is a substance 2) it can be clearly and distinctly understood without any other substance, including bodies 3) God could create a mental substance all by itself without any other created substance.
My soul is not in my body as a pilot in a ship; I am most tightly bound to it...;

"sense perception relies on the mind rather than on the body"

[P]erception ... is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. ... [R]ather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone.

Example
Observe a piece of wax. It has a distinctive feel, odor, sound, taste, size, color, and temperature (Section 30). As the wax is heated each of those sensory attributes changes dramatically or is lost altogether (Section 30). Relying only on the physical senses would lead to the conclusion that the wax in its original form is a different substance than the wax in its later form, yet no one claims that both are not the same substance (Section 30). If the sensory elements of the wax are unreliable in helping us understand the wax, what are the essential non-sensory characteristics of wax? It is something extended, flexible, and mutable (Section 31). How do I understand that it is extended, flexible and mutable? Perhaps it is by my imagination. I cannot imagine all of the infinite variety of forms the wax might take, so imagination is not responsible for my understanding of wax (Section 31).

Descartes mathematically constructed world corresponds to computer generated artificial reality. His dream a world on which man can depend will be just fulfilled if the world is computable. He intends to prove this through his Consistent hypothesis which evaluates whether the world is purely constructed (consistent) or unfair. The digital world as seen through this hypothesis of Descartes represents a system built on strict laws, namely the binary systems.

Matrix Reality: the Rene world is an illusion Descartes


MECHANICAL RESPONSES MENTAL WORLD
If the fire A is close to the foot B, the small parts of this fire, which, as you know, move very quickly, have the force to move the part of the skin of the foot that they touch, and by this means pull the small thread C, which you can see is attached, simultaneously opening the entrance of the pore d, e, where this small thread endsthe entrance of the pore or small passage d, e, being thus opened, the animal spirits in the concavity F enter the thread and are carried by it to the muscles that are used to withdraw the foot from the fire.

d e C

Descartes tried to explain reflex responses, like removing your foot from a hot fire, in purely mechanical terms. He believed that the fire affected the skin, pulling a tiny threat which opened a pore in the brains ventricle and caused animal spirits to flow. But what is conscious responses? It is tempting to think that a signal must come into consciousness before we can decide to act on it.

C A
B

The Problem of Interconnectivity between Body and Mind the nature of body: to be divisible into parts: entirely material thing without any thinking in it at all
while the nature of the mind: is understood to be something quite simple and complete so as not to be composed of parts and is, therefore, indivisible: entirely immaterial thing

But how can two substances with completely different natures causally interact?
Yet contact must occur between two or more surfaces, and, since having a surface is a mode of extension, minds cannot have surfaces Therefore, minds cannot come into contact with bodies in order to cause some of their limbs to move.

How a mental substance can cause motion in a bodily substance?


OR

How can the motion of particles in the eye, for example, traveling through the optic nerve to the brain cause visual sensations in the mind, if no contact or transfer of motion is possible between the two?

New Notion: Union between mind and body


Descartes, however, never seemed very concerned about this problem.

the mind (or soul) is a part with its own capacity for modes of intellect and will; the body is a part with its own capacity for modes of size, shape, motion and quantity; the union of mind and body or human being, has a capacity for its own set of modes over and above the capacities possessed by the parts alone.

Raising the arm would be found in a principle of choice internal to human nature and similarly sensations would be modes of the whole human being. the human being would be causing itself to move and would have sensations and, therefore, the problem of causal interaction between mind and body is avoided altogether.

Seat of the Soul: Pineal Gland


the mind is joined to the body in one specific place: pineal gland, a single gland in the centre of the brain, between the two lobes. This is the spot in which interaction takes place. The mind has the ability to move the pineal gland, and by doing so, to change the state of the brain in such a way as to produce voluntary motions. Similarly, the sensory organs all transmit their information to the pineal gland and, as a result of that, sensation is transmitted to the attached mind. However, because of the interconnection of the parts that make up the organic body, by virtue of being connected to the pineal gland, the mind can properly be said to be connected with the body as a whole. Only a few people accepted Descartes' pineal neurophysiology when he was still alive, and it was almost universally rejected after his death.

Descartes argument in Overview


1. Acquired knowledge can emanate from real causes and real effects; ideas come into the mind through the causation of external things and the ideas perfectly resemble the things themselves.

2. The reason for believing in the world outside is the existence of ideas.
3. The only idea that is not possible to recreate is the existence of God because the infinitely perfect being cannot be formulated in such perfection.

4. If the ideas about the external world are incorrect God would be deceiving humans, therefore the rational world has to exist. The thinking subject validates the constructed world by consistent hypotheses. 5. The observed world acts as if it is purely constructed and is describable by the methods of deduction. 6. So long as the dream adjusts to the waking reality then the world is true.

Misinterpretation of Descartes theory


Many scholars understand Descartes doctrine of the real distinction between mind and body such that Descartes human being is believed to be not one, whole thing but two substances that somehow mechanistically interact. This also means that they find the mind-body problem to be a serious, if not fatal, flaw of Descartes entire philosophy.

Supporter of this theory in contemporary science and philosophy for example:

The religious brain scientist, S John Eccles agnostic philosopher, Sir Karl Popper

The Theatre of the Mind


The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away and mindgle in an infinite variaty of postures and situations. (David Hume) The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented, nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented, nor of the material of which it is composed. Platos famous allegory of the cave: we humans do not directly see the reality but are like prisoners in a dark cave who can watch only the shadow of people outside moving in front a fire.

What does it feel like being you now?

I am somewhere inside my head, looking out through my eyes at the world. I can feel my hands on the book and the position of my body, and I can hear the sounds happening around me, which come into my consciousness whenever I attend to them. If I shut my eyes I can imagine things in my mind as though I am looking at mental images. Thought and feelings come into my consciousness and pass away again. (Susan Blackmore, 2007, p.64)

The Theatre of the Mind


We seem to imagine that there is some place inside my mind or brain where I am. This place has something like a mental screen or stage on which images are presented for viewing by my minds eye. In this special place everything that we are conscious of at a given moment comes together and consciousness happen. The ideas, images and feelings that are in this place are in consciousness, and all the rest are unconscious. The show in the Cartesian theatre is the stream of consciousness, and the audience is me.

The critique of the Cartesian Theatre (CT)

Cartesian Materialism (Dennett)


Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of.
Metaphorical space or place or stage within which conscious experiences happen, and into which the contents of consciousness come and go. This is also implicates that consciousness is not separate from the brain and so there must be some brain basis for this theatre of the mind where it all comes together and consciousness happens (Dennett, 1991, p.39)

Daniel Dennett
1. If Cartesian materialism were true and there really was a special brain area (or areas) that stored the contents of conscious experience, then it should be possible to ascertain exactly when something enters conscious experience. 2. It is impossible, even in theory, to ever precisely determine when something enters conscious experience. 3. Therefore, Cartesian materialism is false.

Cartesian Theatre (Denett, 1991)


Dennett says: it may feel like this, the Cartesian theatre, and the audience inside it, does not exist. Most scientist and philosophers rejects all forms of Cartesian dualism. He also claims that many materialists, who also claim to reject dualism, implicitly still believe in something like a central place or time where consciousness happens and someone to whom it happens there is still a kind of dualism in their view of consciousness. Dennett calls such a belief

Cartesian materialism.

Denetts Theory Heterophenomenology: Multiple Drafts Model


Defending a certain kind a behaviorism and opposing a certain kind of dualism. The kind of "behaviorism" that Dennett defends has room for "feelings, pains, dreams, beliefs, and hopes and expectations" " but only so long as these are understood to be physical (`informational' or `computational') processes that could be accomplished by the machinery of the brain. Dennett evidently grants "the central importance for a science of psychology of making sense of the Jamesian stream of consciousness. The key concept here is "physical processes that could be accomplished by the machinery of the brain."
COG

Common phrases implies CT in or out of consciousness


The information entered consciousness The processing happened outside of consciousness The solution leapt into consciousness Ideas come into consciousness Confusing terminologies when we refer to consciousness

WHERE IS THIS EXPERENCE?

Why this is a burning topic at the turning of XXI century?

Bibliography
http://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Black more0.html Collinson, D. 1998. Fifty Major Philosophers, A Reference Guide. London, New York: Routledge

Videos on Descartes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44h9Qu WcJYk http://www.bookvideos.tv/videoid/1252

Empiricism
This approach widely opposed to the previous rationalists definition. Whereas rationalists believe in the apparatus of human understanding, empirical approaches explains the criterion of truth through the sensory perception (and not by deductive and intellectual capacities) John Locke (1690) so-called gnosiological phenomenalism David Humes (1748) Sceptical Philosophy further develops Lockes notion by applying scientific methods of study to human nature itself. George Berkley: esse is percipi, to be is to be perceived.

David Hume
British Philosopher He regards philosophy as an empirical science. David Hume ranks among the most influential philosophers in the field of the philosophy of religion. He criticized the standard proofs for Gods existence, traditional notions of Gods nature and divine governance, the connection between morality and religion, and the rationality of belief in miracles. He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religious beliefs, grounding such notions in human psychology rather than in rational argument or divine revelation. The larger aim of his critique was to disentangle philosophy from religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its ends without either rational over-extension or psychological corruption.

Hume
His principle: all the raw material of our thoughts and beliefs comes from experience, sensory and into perspective. Our thoughts are without content and our words without meaning, unless they are connected to experience. Most of our knowledge rests on experience or, since the only certain knowledge and we have mathematical and concerned with the relations of ideas, that what we acceptably believe does.

David Hume
Humans are not able to directly experience outside reality, thus no model is able to distinguish causally produced ideas from others ideas that exist.

Human Cognition in Humes world is to experience a mixture of reflected ideas of the external world and mentally produced reflection, however, we never know which phenomena belongs to which world (necessary connexion) , internal or external.

Hume: Secret Connexion


Human cognition is based on the inherent habits of the nervous system or rather human nature and not on proved knowledge of the external world. Secret Connexion which is able to accurately predict the future or the cause-effect principle without repeated observation: Accordingly, Hume states that the supposition that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit* (Hume, 1737, p.134) *habit: how we learn from experience.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)


Immanuel Kant is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. This article focuses on his metaphysics and epistemology in one of his most important works, The Critique of Pure Reason.

A large part of Kants work addresses the question What can we know? The answer, if it can be stated simply, is that our knowledge is constrained to mathematics and the science of the natural, empirical world. It is impossible, Kant argues, to extend knowledge to the supersensible realm of speculative metaphysics. The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kant argues, is that the mind plays an active role in constituting the features of experience and limiting the minds access to the empirical realm of space and time.

Immanuel Kant (1781)


transcendental ideality
synthesises the above models (empiricism and rationalism)

Critique of Rationalist view: using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions.

Critique of Empiricism: experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason.
.

Perception
Kant divided perception to:

on one hand for a world where the things are themselves

and on other hand for an appearance world where the things are how they appear for us

The critique of pure reason (1781)


The

world we live in which the appearance of the object is just a state and not the reality of the object. Kant describes human understanding in process as the faculty of sensibility through the experience creates the phenomena he calls intuition. This information is just raw material that has to be organised and compressed by the faculty of the mind in order to result in conception.

The human view of the objective world is the conception of an object which is linked to a particular phenomenal experience. While the phenomena depends on the human point of view until then the object is selfsufficient. The object that we immediately see by perception is the real object which is created by the chain reaction of impression and conception.

The external world is engendered from the institutions and conception by the human understanding apparatus; the real world is immediately generated through them (objectivity of the mind)

the world we live in: NOUMENA


The outside world is immediately given and the human being gives sense with its existence to the world.

1. Phenomenal Experience created by the sensory faculty Impression Intuition


A priori Knowledge:

Conception =not the reality

super-sensible world KNOWLADGE PRODUCTION

NOUMENA: cannot cause phenomena (only the sensory faculty)

(Real-Reality?) Self-sufficient Reality

Knowledge
Knowledge of the things itself cannot be created through impressions because they are just the acquisition of sensitive experience. The human understanding apparatus maps the structure to the super-sensible world whereas the created appearance of mind covers the objective world view. Accordingly human already have a structure in his brain which allows for the acquisition of experience to be processed and ordered (A priori Knowledge)

Kant: Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Intuitions/Phenomena -- the immediate undetermined objects of sensibility. Conceptions -- with conceptions we organise phenomena, and are able to understand them.

Noumena -- the world of unknowable things in themselves.

NOUMENA suggests
lack of the construct of human (sensibility and mind) faculties to avoid this conclusion Kant gave relational objectivity of the external world: The Kantian objectivity means to build up a relationship to the external world (object) that is the representation of the subject and has an independent structure from object.

PROBLEM: However, this reality doesnt demonstrate independency. The noumena are charged to represent these qualities but because of their unknown nature this leads to scepticism concerning human understanding.

Video
Robert Brandom: Kantian Lessons about Mind, Meaning, and Rationality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIC4VcZdRWM&feature= player_embedded

Geoffrey Warnock on Kant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN5XzaWumV0&feature= player_embedded

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