David Ray Griffin, Unsnarling the World–Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind–Body Problem. (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998.) Pp. xv+266. £35/US$45 hb.

1998 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-367
Author(s):  
DAVID A. PAILIN
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
University Of California ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Copernican Revolution in Physics and Cosmology: Vantage Point from beyond Earth

2018 ◽  
pp. 351-376
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Pulling Forces ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Why do we so stubbornly cling to the assumption of mind? Despite the so far presented empirical, ontological, and conceptual-logical evidence against mind, the philosopher may nevertheless reject the world-brain problem as counter-intuitive. She/he will argue that we need to approach the question for the existence and reality of mental features in terms of the mind-body problem as it is more intuitive than the world-brain problem. Our strong adherence to mind is thus, at least in part, based on what philosophers describe as “intuition”, the “intuition of mind” as I say. How can we resist and escape the pulling forces of our “intuition of mind”? The main focus in this chapter and the whole final part is on the “intuition of mind” and how we can avoid and render it impossible. I will argue that we need to exclude the mind as possible epistemic option from our knowledge, i.e., the “logical space of knowledge”, as I say. The concept of “logical space of knowledge” concerns what we can access in our knowledge, i.e., our possible epistemic options that are included in the “logical space of knowledge”, as distinguished from what remains inaccessible to us, i.e., impossible epistemic options, as they are excluded from the “logical space of knowledge”. For instance, the “logical space of knowledge” presupposed in current philosophy of mind and specifically mind-body discussion includes mind as possible epistemic option while world-brain relation is excluded as impossible epistemic option. This, as I argue, provides the basis for our “intuition of mind” and the seemingly counterintuitive nature of world-brain relation. How can we modify and change the possible and impossible epistemic options in our “logical space of knowledge”? I argue that this is possible by shifting our vantage point or viewpoint - that is paradigmatically reflected in the Copernican revolution in cosmology and physics. Copernicus shifted the “vantage point from within earth” to a “vantage point beyond earth”; this enabled him to take into view that the earth (rather than the sun) moves by itself which provided the basis for his shift from a geo- to a helio-centric view of the universe. Hence, the shift in vantage point modified his epistemic options and thus expanded the presupposed “logical space of knowledge”. I conclude that we require an analogous shift in the vantage point we currently presuppose in philosophy of mind. This will expand our “logical space of knowledge” in such way that makes possible to include world-brain relation as possible epistemic option while, at the same time, excluding mind as impossible epistemic option. That, in turn, will render the world-brain problem more intuitive while the mind-body problem will then be rather counter-intuitive. Taken together, this amounts to nothing less than a Copernican revolution in neuroscience and philosophy – that shall be the focus in next chapter.

Color and Color Experience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Reflectance ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Surface Features ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Internal Mental States

In this paper I investigate the problems for “locating” color in the world, surveying the various subjectivist and objectivist positions and finding them wanting. I then argue that the problem is that colors are “ways of appearing,” an odd kind of property that essentially implicates the mind and turns the problem of locating color into part of the mind–body problem. Rather than identify colors with objective surface features, such as surface spectral reflectance, or with dispositions to cause certain internal mental states, I treat them as relations holding between the subject and the objects of perception. This is seen to explain why colors are so hard to locate, and also accounts for several other features of color experience.

Conclusion: Copernican Revolution—Is the Brain’s Spontaneous Activity an Empirical, Epistemic, and Ontological Game Changer in Neuroscience and Philosophy?

2018 ◽  
pp. 435-438
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Activity ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Game Changer

Are the brain and its spontaneous activity a “game changer” in our pursuit of the question of the existence and reality of mental features? A game changer is something that allows to take something into view that hitherto remained invisible and was not yet discovered. That, for instance, makes it possible to raise a novel question or problem replacing the previous one. I argue that the brain’s spontaneous activity is indeed a game changer in this sense, an “empirical and ontological game changer” in that it allows us to replace the mind–body problem with the world–brain problem....

Pre-Copernican Stance in Neuroscience and Philosophy: Vantage Point from within Mind or Brain

2018 ◽  
pp. 377-402
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Our intuition pulls us towards assuming the mind. We are therefore inclined to approach the question for the existence and reality of mental features in terms of mind and mind-body problem rather than the world-brain problem (even if the latter is more plausible). The present chapter focuses on the origin of our “intuition of mind”. I argue that our “intuition of mind” is closely related to the vantage point or point of view we presuppose – the vantage point determines or frames the possible epistemic options that are included within the “logical space of knowledge”. Specifically, I argue that a “vantage point from within mind” makes possible to include the “intuition of mind” as possible epistemic option in our “logical space of knowledge”. However, such “vantage point from within mind” as well as its various escape strategies including vantage point from within reason and vantage point from brain or body amount to a pre-Copernican stance as they can be compared to the “vantage point from within earth” (chapter 12). My main argument in the present chapter is therefore that, analogous to Copernicus, we need to replace the pre-Copernican “vantage point from within mind” (or from within brain) by a post-Copernican “vantage point from beyond brain” – the latter will be developed in the next chapter.

Nagel's Challenge and the Mind-Body Problem

Philosophy ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rom Harré
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Causal Power ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The World ◽  
Material State ◽  
Internal Relations ◽  
Brain States ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Person Experience

Nagel has argued that the ‘mind-body’ problem, as traditionally conceived, is insoluble. His challenge to philosophers is to devise a metaphysical scheme that incorporates materialist concepts in describing first person experience and mentalistic concepts in describing third person experience, such that the internal relations between the concepts thereby constructed are necessary. Nagel's own suggestion, a scheme not unlike the ‘underlying process’ schemes of the physical sciences, seems to lead him towards a covert materialism. Progress can be made in meeting the challenge by tackling the problem first by taking the units in each ‘sphere’ to be brains and persons. I show that a metaphysics based on the metaphor of person defined tasks and materially defined tools does satisfy both Nagel's challenge conditions. To devise a scheme for qualia and brain-states I turn back to Locke's presentation of the primary/secondary quality distinction. This depends on the concept of a causal power, grounded in material states of the world. While this scheme is inadequate, a variation, based on Gibson's concept of an affordance, and drawing on Bohr's resolution of the seeming incompatibility between wave and particle ontologies for physics, is promising. The world, whatever it is, affords material states to our perceptual apparatus, and mental states to our proprioceptual apparatus. The mental states/brain states duality is not a duality of types of states, which might stand in causal relations to one another, but is a duality of means of access to two classes of affordances of whatever the world is. There is no mind-body problem in the traditional sense, namely ‘How could a material state cause or be caused by a mental state?’

scholarly journals Representationalism about Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 404-437
Author(s):  
Adam Pautz
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
Sensory Consciousness ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Special Case

According to representationalists, sensory consciousness is a matter of representing the world to be a certain way. Some (Armstrong, Tye, Dretske) have suggested that representationalism fits well with the idea that consciousness can be reduced to something physical. Others think that representationalism makes the mind–body problem harder because our usual models for reducing representation do not apply in the special case of conscious representation. This chapter formulates representationalism, discusses an argument for it, and considers standard objections. The chapter concludes by looking at reductive and nonreductive representationalism.

Descriptive versus Revisionary Metaphysics and the Mind–Body Problem

Philosophy ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 42 (160) ◽  
pp. 105-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Actual Structure ◽  
Conceptual Schema ◽  
The World ◽  
Scientific Task ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

I have appropriated the terms ‘descriptive’ and ‘revisionary’ metaphysics from P.F. Strawson's Individuals. In the Introduction to that work he draws a broad general distinction between two types of metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics is concerned to ‘describe the actual structure of our thought about the world’ while revisionary metaphysics is ‘concerned to produce a better structure’. They also differ in that revisionary metaphysics requires justification of some sort whereas descriptive metaphysics does not. Strawson makes this point when he says, ‘Revisionary metaphysics is at the service of descriptive metaphysics’. Thus, the descriptivist has the sober, scientific task of elucidating our extant conceptual schema while the revisionist has the speculative, slightly literary job of inventing a new conceptual schema.

The Mind-Body Problem Revisited

1975 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 660-660
Author(s):  
MADGE SCHEIBEL ◽  
ARNOLD SCHEIBEL
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Zombies and Dolls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.

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