New philosophy of mind blog

I've just launched a new blog, This Is Philosophy of Mind. It's a companion blog for a forthcoming book of the same name. Give it a look-see:

http://tipom.blogspot.com/

Phenomenal Concepts and Knowing what to Imagine

One relatively natural way of interpreting the suggestion that there are concepts of a quale that are possessed only when enjoying that quale is that the suggestion is equating concept possession with imagination. So, for example, in possessing the concept of a red quale, one is imagining having an experience of red. Further, this imaginative episode itself has a red quale. Such an account might be extended to the following kind of account of linguistic understanding. When one reads or hears the sentence “Smith saw a ripe tomato and thus had a red quale” one’s comprehension of such a sentence is constituted by entering into an imaginative state that itself has a red quale. Such an account may have an initial air of plausibility. Indeed when I discuss such topics with my students, it seems to be a relatively common view among them that comprehension involves the entertaining of mental images.

However, such an account faces a problem that threatens to undermine the whole project of assimilating concept possession to the imaginative re-creation of the thing conceived. We can begin to understand the problem by considering the question: how does one know which quale to imagine?

Consider how the question arises in contemplation of the imaginative account of linguistic comprehension. Suppose that at time t1 Jones does not have a red quale (though he may very well have had a red quale at times prior to t1). Suppose that at time t2, Jones hears (or more specifically, the relevant sounds are transduced by his auditory receptors) the sentence “Smith saw a ripe tomato and thus had a red quale.” Suppose that at time t3 Jones goes into an imaginative state wherein he imagines seeing red and thereby has a mental state with a red quale.

Let us ask our question again, this time with respect to the scenario concerning Jones. How does Jones know which quale to entertain? Quite plausibly, it is at some time after t2 that he knows which quale is the correct one to imagine. Further, and also quite plausibly, it is at time before time t3 that Jones knows which quale is the right one to imagine at t3. Compare, if I am being tested on whether I know which cup a ball is under and I am to indicate my knowledge by pointing at the correct cup, then if I do indeed know, my knowledge is something I have before I point at the cup. My knowledge is one of the causal antecedents of my pointing and causes predate their effects. Similarly, Jones’s knowledge of which quale to imagine predates the imaginative episode. Now, this line of thinking spells trouble for the suggestion that the concept is identical to the imaginative episode, since it is far more plausible to identify the concept with the state of knowledge that predates the imaginative episode.

William G. Lycan: Is Property Dualism Better Off than Substance Dualism?

William G. Lycan: Is Property Dualism Better Off than Substance Dualism?

During the last quarter-century, mind-body dualism has been doing surprisingly well: Campbell (1984), Swinburne (1986), Madell (1988), Robinson (1988, 2004), Hart (1988), Foster (1991), Seager (1991), Strawson (1994), Chalmers (1995), Taliaferro (1996), Bealer (1997), Stubenberg (1998), Griffin (1998), Hasker (1999), Rosenberg (2004), and others. But, with the notable exceptions of Swinburne, Hart and Foster, these dualists are merely property dualists rather than Cartesian substance dualists. They hold that some of our mental states have immaterial properties, but not that we ourselves are immaterial Cartesian souls entirely distinct from our bodies. The prevalent idea is that property dualism is tenable (or even demonstrated), but we are not crazy. I reject this disparity. I think that most of the standard objections to Cartesian dualism (CD) count as effectively against property dualism (PD), and that PD is hardly more plausible, or less implausible, than CD. Granted, assuming that a Cartesian ego would eo ipso have some immaterial mental properties, you might suppose that CD is logically stronger than PD; so one would need a reason for accepting CD over and above PD, and there must be at least one objection that applies to CD but not to PD. However, as we shall see, nonCartesian property dualism (PD & ~CD) faces at least two objections that CD does not.

Indeterminate Determinables in Reality, Belief, and Experience

Here are three theses concerning determinates, determinables, and beliefs and experiences thereof:

1. There are instances of determinables that aren't instances of any of that determinable's determinates.
2. There are beliefs that a determinable is instantiated that aren't beliefs about any of that determinable's determinates being instantiated.
3. There are perceptual experiences of a determinable being instantiated that aren't experiences of any of that determinable's determinates being instantiated.

Remarks:

R1. If there were any examples of 1, one might be a shape that was polygonal without being any particular kind of polygon. I'm guessing 1 is widely held to be false. If anyone has advocated the truth of something like 1 in print, I'd love to hear about it.

R2. I'm guessing that 2 is widely held to be true. I believe that there's a car parked outside that's painted a color, but there's no particular color that I believe it to be painted.

R3. Of 1-3, is 3 the most controversial? I tend to go for 3, but I had a couple of conversations recently with some strongly anti-3 philosophers. If anyone knows of an argument, in print, that, for instance, something can't be seen to be green without being seen to be some determinate shade of green, I'd love to hear about it.

The Doxastic Voluntarism Paradox

The following strikes me as paradox-ish, if not outright paradoxical:

(DVP): Jennifer refuses to beleive in doxastic voluntarism.

Remarks and assumptions:

1. S can refuse to believe that P only if doxastic voluntarism is true
(seems prima facie reasonable).

2. Jennifer believes 1 (I hereby stipulate that).

New Blog: Alternate Minds

I've started a new blog, Alternate Minds: Cognitive Science Fiction and Philosophy (http://cogsciphi.blogspot.com), which will serve as a research repository for my Alternate Minds book project.

The aim of the Alternate Minds Project is to explore science fictional permutations of the concept of mind (and related concepts such as intelligence, perception, selfhood). By entertaining speculative scenarios wherein the target concepts are bent almost beyond recognition, we gain insights into the nature of mind and catch glimpses of new possibilities. Initial investigations will be clustered around seven key themes.

1. Virtual Minds are typically thought of as embedded in simulated environments and the minds themselves may be artificial. One intriguing question is whether there can be naturally occurring instances of virtual minds, or whether there must always be an artificial component that defines their virtuality.

2. Infinite Minds are minds infinite in one or more capacities, such as infinite intelligence, infinite perceptual acuity, or infinite will power. Of our various mental capacities that come in degrees, for which, if any, does it make sense to imagine versions that are infinite? Can we coherently conceive of, for example, a being with infinite will-power?

3. Group Minds are minds with proper parts that are themselves minds. Are any of our minds already proper parts of group minds? If there were group minds in our midst, how would we know?

4. Time-traveling Minds either literally move through time in non-standard ways or employ high degrees of computational power to simulate target events. What cognitive/computational advantages are there to intelligent systems that harness literal time-travel? From a computational point of view, what are the relative resource costs of literal versus simulated time-travel?

5. Hyper-spatial Minds: One of the most fun things to think about in contemplating minds inhabiting spaces of dimension n>3 are questions concerning the perceptual phenomenology of seeing (feeling, etc.) hyperspatial objects. What is it like to have four- (or five- or six-) dimensional eyes? In addition to these questions concerning hyperspatial sensory input, are interesting questions of output. What is it like to move a body though a hyperspatial manifold? Last, but not least, are questions concerning the computational processes mediating between inputs and outputs. What advantages and obstacles are presented to circuit-engineering a cognitive architecture where there are extra dimensions in which to wire things up.

6. Quantum Minds: The dominant approaches in contemporary cognitive science deal with minds within a classical physical framework. But what would consciousness and cognition be like if non-classical quantum principles played major roles in implementation. What would it be like to be an AI implemented on a quantum computer? What would it be like to be small enough or perceptually sensitive enough to directly perceive events occurring on quantum scales?

7. Anti-Minds are non-sapient, non-sentient systems with the capability to detect and destroy minds. They are either the ultimate evil or the ultimate protection against the dangerous effects of technologically advanced civilizations. One of the core questions raised in contemplating anti-minds is whether there can exist non-intelligent mechanisms for the detection of intelligence. Such mechanisms could be crucial in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.