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What has started with Descartes? What is

and what is Not Consciousness? Why this isa burning topic at the turning of XXI century:

Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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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.

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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 orinorganic, no matter how striking theirsurface differences, can be fully

explained in terms of, the elementarymechanics of the particles out which therelevant object are made up.

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Born in France

Extensively travelled Germany, Italy,

Holland and FranceFor 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 theuniverse (withheld frompublication)

1641 six Meditations on firstphilosophy

1644 Principles of Philosophy

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Descartes is regarded as the founder of modern

philosophy

He was mathematician as well as philosopher

I think therefore I am

Cogito ego sumthe proof of his own existence as a thinking being

starting point of his research as certainty

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Descartes sees the reality of the externalworld as the result of God creation.

Knowledge of the world can be acquiredthrough Pure Reason. Rational knowledge

like mathematical-scientific understanding is

the primary approach to world.

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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

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Cartesian View: Dualistic ViewThe Division of the reality into two

fundamental view:

Thinking Stuff (Res Cogitans) - Extended

Stuff (Res Extensa)

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the night from 10 to 11 November of 1619 revolutionized Descartescomprehension of his world picture. In his nightmare, which hereferred to as a form of wicked demon procreated illusion he sawthe entire world as manipulation:

This meant that God was a beguiler. He saysI must, as soon as possible, try todetermine (1) whether or not God exists

and (2) whether or not He can be adeceiver. Until I know these two things, Iwill never be certain of anything else.(Descartes, 1641, p. 289)

Descartes Dream

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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.

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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....

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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 andeffect argument: if the idea perfect ( thought),

then its cause is likewise perfect.

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2. Argument

Ontological argument

The idea of a most perfect being is of a being

containing every perfection and thus containingreality in every degree containing every.

The idea of a most perfect being therefore containsthe idea of existence and this means that Godessence contains his existence.

GOD is perfect . He will not deceive the worldtherefore the physical world exist.

The light of reason

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One of the greatest enquiries of philosophy isthe 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 ofthe mind.

What has started with Descartes?

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The Body-Mind Problem Ontologically

1. What are mental states and processes?

2. What are physical states and processes?

3. How are the mental and physical related?

is the study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general and of its

basic categories and their relations .

What has started with Descartes?

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Epistemological: body-mind problem

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)

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.

What has started with Descartes?

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Physical-Mental

Outside-Inside

Subjective-Objective

Real Reality Virtual Reality (Illusion)

BODY-MIND PROBLEM

What has started with Descartes?

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DualismThe Division of the reality into two

fundamental view:

Thinking Stuff (Mind) - Extended Stuff

(Body)

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Descartes Body-MindMind 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 distinctlyunderstood without any other

substance, including bodies

3) God could create a mentalsubstance 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...;

http://d/My%20Videos/RealPlayer%20Downloads/Cyborg%20insects.flv

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[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.

"sense perception relies on the mind rather

than on the body"

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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 changesdramatically or is lost altogether (Section 30).

Relying only on the physical senses would lead to the conclusion that thewax in its original form is a different substance than the wax in its laterform, yet no one claims that both are not the same substance (Section30).

If the sensory elements of the wax are unreliable in helping us understandthe wax, what are the essential non-sensory characteristics of wax? It issomething extended, flexible, and mutable (Section 31).

How do I understand that it is extended, flexible and mutable? Perhaps itis by my imagination. I cannot imagine all of the infinite variety of formsthe wax might take, so imagination is not responsible for myunderstanding of wax (Section 31).

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Descartes mathematicallyconstructed world correspondsto computer generated artificialreality.

His dream a world on whichman can depend will be justfulfilled if the world iscomputable.

He intends to prove this throughhis Consistent hypothesis whichevaluates whether the world ispurely constructed (consistent)or unfair.

The digital world as seenthrough this hypothesis ofDescartes represents a systembuilt on strict laws, namely thebinary systems.

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Rene Descartes

If the fireA is close to the foot B, the small parts of thisfire, which, as you know, move very quickly, have the forceto move the part of the skin of the foot that they touch,and by this means pull the small thread C, which you cansee is attached, simultaneously opening the entrance ofthe pore d, e, where this small thread endsthe entranceof the pore or small passage d, e, being thus opened, theanimal spirits in the concavity Fenter the thread and arecarried by it to the muscles that are used to withdraw thefoot from the fire.

A

B

C

dF

C

e

MECHANICAL RESPONSES MENTAL WORLD

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 isconscious responses? It is tempting to think

that a signal must come into consciousness

before we can decide to act on it.

Matrix Reality: the world is an illusion

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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 tobe something quite simple and complete soas not to be composed of parts and is,therefore, indivisible:

entirely immaterial thing

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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 modeof extension, minds cannot have surfaces

Therefore, minds cannot come into contact

with bodies in order to cause some of their

limbs to move.

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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, ifno contact or transfer of motion is possible

between the two?

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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.

New Notion: Union between mind and body

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Raising the arm would be found in a principleof choice internal to human nature andsimilarly sensations would be modes of thewhole human being.

the human being would be causing itself tomove and would have sensations and,therefore, the problem of causal interactionbetween mind and body is avoided altogether.

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the mind is joined to the body in onespecific 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 tomove the pineal gland, and by doingso, to change the state of the brain insuch a way as to produce voluntarymotions.

Similarly, the sensory organs alltransmit their information to thepineal gland and, as a result of that,sensation is transmitted to theattached mind. However, because ofthe interconnection of the parts thatmake up the organic body, by virtue of

being connected to the pineal gland,the mind can properly be said to beconnected with the body as a whole.

Only a few people acceptedDescartes' pineal neurophysiologywhen he was still alive, and it wasalmost universally rejected after hisdeath.

Seat of the Soul: Pineal Gland

i O i

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Descartes argument in Overview

1. Acquired knowledge can emanate from real

causes and real effects; ideas come into themind through the causation of external thingsand the ideas perfectly resemble the thingsthemselves.

2. The reason for believing in the world outsideis the existence of ideas.

3. The only idea that is not possible to recreateis the existence of God because the infinitelyperfect being cannot be formulated in suchperfection.

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4. If the ideas about the external world areincorrect God would be deceiving humans,therefore the rational world has to exist. Thethinking subject validates the constructed worldby consistent hypotheses.

5. The observed world acts as if it is purelyconstructed and is describable by the methods ofdeduction.

6. So long as the dream adjusts to the wakingreality then the world is true.

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Many scholars understand

Descartes doctrine of the realdistinction between mind andbody such that Descartes humanbeing is believed to be not one,whole thing but two substancesthat somehow mechanistically

interact. This also means that theyfind the mind-body problem to bea serious, if not fatal, flaw ofDescartes entire philosophy.

Misinterpretation of Descartes theory

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

The religious brain scientist, S John Eccles

agnostic philosopher, Sir Karl Popper

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The Theatre of the Mind

The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptionssuccessively make their appearance; pass, repass, glideaway and mindgle in an infinite variaty of postures andsituations. (David Hume)

The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us Theyare the successive perceptions only, that constitute themind; nor have we the most distant notion of the placewhere these scenes are represented, nor have we the mostdistant notion of the place where these scenes arerepresented, nor of the material of which it is composed.

Platos famous allegory of the cave: we humans do notdirectly see the reality but are like prisoners in a dark cavewho can watch only the shadow of people outside movingin front a fire.

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What does it feel like being you now?

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I am somewhere inside my head, looking out

through my eyes at the world. I can feel myhands on the book and the position of my body,and I can hear the sounds happening aroundme, which come into my consciousness

whenever I attend to them. If I shut my eyes I canimagine things in my mind as though I am lookingat mental images. Thought and feelings come intomy consciousness and pass away again.

(Susan Blackmore, 2007, p.64)

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We seem to imagine that there is some place insidemy mind or brain where I am.

This place has something like a mental screen or stage onwhich images are presented for viewing by my minds

eye. In this special place everything that we areconscious of at a given moment comes together andconsciousness happen. The ideas, images and feelingsthat are in this place are in consciousness, and all the

rest are unconscious. The show in the Cartesian theatreis the stream of consciousness, and the audience is me.

The Theatre of the Mind

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The critique of the Cartesian Theatre (CT)

Cartesian Materialism (Dennett)

Cartesian materialism is theview 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)

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1. If Cartesian materialism were true and there really was a

special brain area (or areas) that stored the contents ofconscious 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.

Daniel Dennett

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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 ofCartesian dualism.

He also claims that many materialists, who also claim toreject dualism, implicitly still believe in something like acentral place or time where consciousness happens andsomeone to whom it happensthere is still a kind of

dualism in their view of consciousness. Dennett calls such a belief

Cartesian materialism.

Cartesian Theatre (Denett, 1991)

Denetts Theory

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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 beaccomplished by the machinery of the brain.

Dennett evidently grants "the central importance for ascience of psychology of making sense of the Jamesian streamof consciousness. The key concept here is "physical processesthat could be accomplished by the machinery of the brain."

COG

C h i li CT

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Common phrases implies CT

in or out of consciousness

The information entered consciousness

The processing happened outside ofconsciousness

The solution leapt into consciousness

Ideas come into consciousness

Confusing terminologies when we refer to

consciousness

WHERE IS THIS EXPERENCE?

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h hi i b i i h

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Why this is a burning topic at the

turning of XXI century?

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Bibliography

http://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Black

more0.html

Collinson, D. 1998. Fifty Major Philosophers,

A Reference Guide. London, New York:

Routledge

http://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Blackmore0.htmlhttp://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Blackmore0.htmlhttp://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Blackmore0.htmlhttp://www.wutsamada.com/phlmind/Blackmore0.html

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Videos on Descartes

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WcJYk http://www.bookvideos.tv/videoid/1252

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Empiricism

This approach widely opposed to the previous

rationalists definition. Whereas rationalists believe inthe apparatus of human understanding, empiricalapproaches explains the criterion of truth through thesensory perception (and not by deductive andintellectual capacities)

John Locke (1690) so-called gnosiologicalphenomenalism

David Humes (1748) Sceptical Philosophy furtherdevelops Lockes notion by applying scientific methods

of study to human nature itself.

George Berkley: esse ispercipi, to be is to beperceived.

D id H

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David Hume British Philosopher

He regards philosophy as an empirical science.

David Hume ranks among the most influential philosophersin the field of the philosophy of religion. He criticized thestandard proofs for Gods existence, traditional notions ofGods nature and divine governance, the connection

between morality and religion, and the rationality of belief inmiracles.

He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religiousbeliefs, grounding such notions in human psychology ratherthan in rational argument or divine revelation. The largeraim of his critique was to disentangle philosophy from

religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its ends withouteither rational over-extension or psychological corruption.

Hume

http://www.iep.utm.edu/god-west/http://www.iep.utm.edu/god-west/

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Hume

His principle: all the raw material of our thoughts

and beliefs comes from experience, sensory andinto perspective.

Our thoughts are without content and our wordswithout meaning, unless they are connected to

experience. Most of our knowledge rests on experience or,

since the only certain knowledge and we havemathematical and concerned with the relationsof ideas, that what we acceptably believe does.

D id H

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David Hume

Humans are not able to directly experience outsidereality, thus no model is able to distinguish causally

produced ideas from others ideas that exist.

Human Cognition in Humes world is to experience amixture 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.

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Hume: Secret Connexion

Human cognition is based on the inherent habits of thenervous system or rather human nature and not on provedknowledge of the external world.

Secret Connexion which is able to accurately predict thefuture or the cause-effect principle without repeatedobservation:

Accordingly, Hume states that the supposition that the futureresembles 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.

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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.

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A large part of Kants work addresses the questionWhat can we know? The answer, if it can be statedsimply, is that our knowledge is constrained tomathematics and the science of the natural, empiricalworld.

It is impossible, Kant argues, to extend knowledge tothe supersensible realm of speculative metaphysics.

The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kantargues, is that the mind plays an active role inconstituting the features of experience and limiting the

minds access to the empirical realm of space and time.

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Immanuel Kant (1781)

transcendental ideality

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.

.

synthesises the above models (empiricism

and rationalism)

P ti

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Perception

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 forus

Kant divided perception to:

Th iti f (1781)

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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 theobject.

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 mindin order to result in conception.

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The human view of the objective world is the

conception of an object which is linked to aparticular phenomenal experience.

While the phenomena depends on the human

point of view until then the object is self-sufficient. The object that we immediately see byperception is the real object which is created bythe chain reaction of impression and conception.

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The external world is engendered from the

institutions and conception by the human

understanding apparatus; the real world isimmediately generated through them

(objectivity of the mind)

the world we live in: NOUMENA

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super-sensible world KNOWLADGE PRODUCTION

NOUMENA: cannot cause phenomena (only the sensory faculty)

the world we live in : NOUMENAThe 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

(Real-Reality?) Self-sufficient Reality

Conception =not the realityA prioriKnowledge:

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K l d

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Knowledge of the things itself cannot be created

through impressions because they are just theacquisition 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 experienceto be processed and ordered (A prioriKnowledge)

Knowledge

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Intuitions/Phenomena -- the immediateundetermined objects of sensibility.

Conceptions -- with conceptions we organisephenomena, and are able to understandthem.

Noumena -- the world of unknowable thingsin themselves.

Kant: Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions

without concepts are blind.

NOUMENA t

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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 relationshipto the external world (object) that is the

representation of the subject and has anindependent structure from object.

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PROBLEM:

However, this reality doesnt demonstrate

independency. The noumena are charged to

represent these qualities but because of theirunknown nature this leads to scepticism concerning

human understanding.

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Video

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Robert Brandom: Kantian Lessons about Mind, Meaning,

and Rationalityhttp://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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