1. Time, Self and Mind (ATS1835) Introduction to Philosophy B Semester 2, 2015
Dr Ron Gallagher
Office Hours: Clayton: Thu 1-2pm E664 (please for appointment)
Week 4: Mind
Dualism versus Materialism about the Mind

2. Time - Introduction and Time Travel
Week
Beginning
Topic
Assessment
Readings W1
27-Jul-14
Time - Introduction and Time Travel
Readings 1.1 & 1.2 W2
03-Aug-14
Time Travel; Freedom, Determinism, and Indeterminism
Readings 1.5 & 1.6 (sections 1-2 & 6-10) W3
10-Aug-14
Logic Primer
AT1 Mon August 10, 10am
Readings W4
17-Aug-14
Mind- Dualism versus Materialism about the Mind
Readings W5
24-Aug-14
Mind - Can Machines Think? Computationalism and the Turing Test
Readings 3.3 W6
31-Aug-14
Mind - Can Machines Think? Objections to Computationalism
AT2 Mon Aug 31st, 10am
Reading 3.4 W7
07-Sep-14
Self - Lockean Psychological Theory and Identity
Readings W8
14-Sep-14
Self - Identity, the Body & Person Stages
Readings W9
21-Sep-14
Knowledge What is Knowledge and Gettier's Account
AT3 Mon Sep 21st, 10am
Readings
28-Sep-14
Mid-semester Break
W10
05-Oct-14
Knowledge - Nozick's Account and Scepticism
Readings
W11
12-Oct-14
Knowledge - The Moorean Response
AT4 Essay Mon Oct 12th
Readings 5.5
W12
19-Oct-14
Revision (no lectures, no tutorials)

3. Assessment Hurdle Requirements to Pass this Unit
Due Date
Assessment Task
Value
Mondays 10am
Reading Quizzes (10)
5% (bonus)
Mon Aug 10th
AT1 words)
10%
Mon Aug 31st
AT2 words)
Mon Sep 21st
AT3 words)
Mon Oct 12th
AT4 Essay words)
30%
TBA
Exam
40%
Hurdle Requirements to Pass this Unit
Your overall grade for the unit must be at least 50%
You must achieve a grade of 40% or more on the final exam
You must not fail more than one assessment task (not including Reading Quizzes)
You cannot miss more than 3 tutorials

4. Clayton Lectures and Tutorials

5. Caulfield Lectures and Tutorials

6. EXAMPLE OF AN INCONSISTENT SET
These 3 statements form an inconsistent set
Fred is good at logic.
Nobody who failed this test is good at logic.
Fred failed this test.
It is not logically possible that all statements in the set are true.

7. A set of sentences is said to be consistent if and only if there is at least one possible situation in which they are all true. So, the following set of sentences is consistent:
Grass is green.
It is not the case that the moon is green.
Most humans have ten fingers.
Grasshoppers have six legs and dogs have four.
Earth is a cube.

8. The house is not all green. Contradictory
The difference between a contradictory pair of sentences and an inconsistent pair.
(From page 75 of ATS1835 Reader)
The house is all green.
The house is not all green. Contradictory
The house is all blue. Inconsistent
Test: If one is false is the other necessarily true?

10. What is the mind? [Maybe it’s the wrong question]
What is intelligence?
What is thinking?
What is reasoning?
What is calculating?
What is self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
What is language?
What are emotions?
What is inquisitivenesss?
What is creativity?
What is learning?

11. AT2: Logic & Mind
In your own words, explain what a good argument is, as defined in this class. Using an example of your own, break down entirely the idea of a good argument, along the following lines. What is an argument? What are the main components of arguments? In saying that an argument is good, which two virtues are we primarily concerned with? How can these virtues come apart? (Thoroughly explain your answer in your own words, and be sure to define any key terms and positions. 300 words max.)
(2) In his meditation, Descartes concludes that he is in essence an immaterial thing. How does he reach this conclusion exactly? (Thoroughly explain your answer in your own words, and be sure to define any key terms and positions. 300 words max.) 

12. MULTIPLE-CHOICE
Why does Descartes hold that he is essentially a thinking thing?
Because:
a. He can conceive of himself as existing without being extended.
b. He cannot conceive of himself as existing without thinking.
c. He can conceive of his body as existing without thinking.
d. He cannot conceive of his body as existing without being extended.

13. Descartes’ analysis of mind and matter
Descartes is interested in the essential properties of things: the properties that cannot be stripped off a thing without stopping the thing from being what it is. He finds, via the cogito, that the essence of the mental is to be thinking – it’s a res cogitans.
The essence of the material is to have extension – it’s res extensa. The key tool is to ask whether there is any contradiction involved in conceiving of the thing without a given property – if there is, then that property is essential for that thing. On the other hand, if it is possible to split the thing apart from the property without making
the thing cease to be what it is – if for example god could do it (see Med 6) – then they are distinct.

14. From Descartes Discourse on Method (1637)
I then considered attentively what I was; and I saw that while I could feign that I had no body, that there was no world, and no place existed for me to be in, I could not feign that I was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that I thought of doubting about other truths it evidently and certainly followed that I existed. On the other hand, if I had merely ceased to be conscious, even if everything else that I had ever imagined had been true, I had no reason to believe that I should still have existed. From this I recognized that I was a substance whose whole essence and nature is to be conscious and whose being requires no place and depends on no material thing. Thus this self, that is to say the soul, by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body, and is even more easily known; and even if the body were not there at all the soul would be just what it is.
Descartes: Philosophical Writings, translated and edited by E. Anscombe and P. T. Geach (1971)

15. Mind versus matter in Descartes’ universe
MATTER The ‘essence’ of matter is extension (taking up space) Matter has no mental properties at all; only shape, size and motion Matter is divisible; physical things have parts Matter can be destroyed
MIND
The ‘essence’ of mind is thinking (consciousness)
Minds have no mass, shape or size. They no location in space
Minds are not divisible; they do not literally have parts
Minds are indestructible

18. Interactionism
Mind 18

19. Parallelism
Mind 19

20. Epiphenomenalism X
Mind 20

24. Anthropomorphism & Anthropocentrism
Anthropomorphism : we project human characteristics onto animals and things.
Anthropocentrism: we see things from a human perspective and judge intelligence and other criteria for personhood by human standards.

25. Which has a mind? Which thinks? Which has consciousness?

26. Equal Pay for monkeys
Self Recognition
Kanzi

27. http://www.cyc.com/ Chinese Room 60 Seconds
Winner of 2013 Loebner Prize
Quite Interesting - Asimo
COG - Rodney Brooks
CYC - Douglas Lenat

28. Cognitive Science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computational procedures.

29. Functionalism
Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part.

30. What is the mind? [Maybe it’s the wrong question]
What is intelligence?
What is thinking?
What is reasoning?
What is calculating?
What is self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
What is language?
What are emotions?
What is inquisitivenesss?
What is creativity?
What is learning?