Comparison Of Ego And Bundle Theories

The study of consciousness in modern day psychology is becoming increasingly difficult to explain. In the early days of consciousness studies it may have been explained as our experience or awareness (Blackmore, 2010). However, over a number of years, there have been many psychologists who have contributed many important theories towards the explanation of how consciousness works, and its initial existence. As Chalmers states: “There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing harder to explain” (Chalmers, 1995 p.200). Being one of the leading philosophers in consciousness, David Chalmers introduced the idea of the Hard Problem in 1994. Chalmers defined the hard problem as: “The questions of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience” (Chalmers, 1995 p.63). Chalmers suggested that he found it difficult to understand how a small mass of grey matter such as the brain could produce conscious experience. These ideas of a ‘hard problem’ in consciousness were rejected by a number of theorists, which will be discussed later in the essay. Another idea which Chalmers has put forward is the zombie. A zombie, according to Chalmers is a being identical to you and I, speaks like you, acts like you, but is not conscious (Blackmore, 2010). A zombie contains no qualia (a physical conscious experience). The idea of the zombie put forward by Chalmers is extremely important in the explanation of consciousness and has been

Many arguments in the philosophy of the mind have been made for and against, whether or not the mind and the brain are the same entity. The mind-brain identity theory is the view that the mind is the brain and that mental states are brain states (Mandik 77). Therefore, we can identify sensations and other mental processes with physical brain processes (Blutner 4). I argue, that the mind is not identical to the brain, and the conceivable idea of zombies, as well as the multiple realizability argument, can disprove this theory.

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or at any rate everything is necessitated by or supervenes on the physical. In contemporary philosophy , physicalism is most frequently associated with the mind-body problem in philosophy of mind , regarding which physicalism holds that all that has been ascribed to "mind" is more correctly ascribed to "brain" or the activity of the brain. The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how our mental states, events and processes—like beliefs, actions and thinking—are related to the physical states, events and processes in our bodies. A long tradition in philosophy has held, with René Descartes, that the mind must be a non-bodily entity: a soul or mental substance. This thesis is called ‘substance dualism’ (or ‘Cartesian dualism’) because it says that there are two kinds of substance in the world, mental and physical or material. The philosophical rival of dualists have been the philosophical doctrine of monism. Monism denies that minds and their bodies are distinct substances. Monists assert that substances are all of one kind. They could say that all substances are mental (idealism); or they could say that all substances are material (materialism). In contemporary philosophy however there are not many philosophers who assert all things are mental hence the dualism, monism controversy has become more a controversy between dualism and materialism or what is more properly physicalism. The terms physicalism and

In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy title Personal Identity describes a person as "not just any being with mental properties of the sort that you and I have- rationality and self-consciousness, for instance- counts as a person. In a philosophy sense a person is not limited to a Homo sapiens sapiens. For example, in the show Star Trek episode Measure of a Man, Data is fighting for the rights he deserve because he is not just a machine. Picard who is Data commander explains to the judge that Data is not just a piece of equipment, he ask Data several question. Data was asked about a book that his commander gave him, when he was ask why does he keep that book his respond was because he treasure it because it was giving to him

ABSTRACT: In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues for a Reductionist View of personal identity. According to a Reductionist, persons are nothing over and above the existence of certain mental and/or physical states and their various relations. Given this, Parfit believes that facts about personal identity just consist in more particular facts concerning psychological continuity and/or connectedness, and thus that personal identity can be reduced to this continuity and/or connectedness. Parfit is aware that his view of personal identity is contrary to what many people ordinarily think about persons, and thus if his view is correct, many of us have false beliefs about personal

The mind is about mental processing, thoughts and consciousness. The body can be described as a physical and mental because it use both of these processing tools for the body to make decisions. We as humans are identified as having a mind and body or brain. We know that dualism is the view that the mind and body both exist as separate entities. One way to understand the mind, is by understanding the other parts it associates with. The mind, spirit, or soul are attached to one another and gives our bodies this idea that our pieces should not be separated.

Searle believed that simply manipulating symbols will not ensure computers are able to think or understand, in other words, knowing syntax does not mean understanding the semantics, and function does not mean understanding.

materialism, which argues that the mind is identical to the physical processes of the brain; and 3)

Materialism is a pretty basic concept to understand. Materialism is the idea that everything that surrounds us is made up of matter or just matter itself. One way that Hylas defines it is that matter is anything that we can sense. By sense he means that we can detect it with the five senses which are touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. If anything follows this idea, then we

The path towards the experience machine is the path to suicide, because it stimulates false belief. Nozick’s objection indicated that the experience machine “limit us to man-made reality”, because “there is no actual contact with deeper reality” (Nozick 28). For example, a scientist wishes to find a way to cure cancer and is hooked up on the experience machine. Even if the experiment works fantastic in the virtual reality, but once he applies it to the real world, it would not perform as greatly as it did in the virtual world. The scientist believes he created a miracle for cancer patient; nevertheless along that way, he destroys a life because of that false belief. Thus, the inner aspects of human’s experience won’t go beyond on the outer

According to Locke, a person is a collection of memories beliefs, and desires. This is what is known as your identity and this is quite interesting because if true, then in theory you could change bodies with anybody and you would still be yourself. To a certain extent, this falls into what we discussed last week relating to brains. If you take person x’s brain and relocate it in person y’s body, it is still person x.

Human beings are material objects, made up of matter like materialist suggest, and based on

On one side of this argument we have the Materialists, and according to the Oxford Dictionary, materialism “is the theory or belief that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.” So let us break that down. ‘Nothing exists except matter,’ means - from the materialist view - that the mind is matter and therefore is one with the body, consequentially, one with the physical world we live in – there is no spiritual element or immaterial soul. Materialists believe nothing needs to be added to the world for there to be minds, only properties of the mind, such as colours, and shapes etc. However, on the other side there are Dualists, who have the view that a person is made of two parts. 1) The mind, or immaterial soul, is a completely separate thing to 2) the body. Dualists believe that something must be added to the world, for minds. Now that we are up to speed, we are going to focus on the most thought-provoking arguments in favour of materialism. We will dive in the deep-end and deconstruct them to see just how strong an argument they have.

Materialism can be described as, “the metaphysical view that holds that only physical entities are real or exist (Mulvaney 531).” Materialism is a topic that shapes how people look at the world and others. It has been a contested topic throughout all of history. As a result this concept has attracted the attention of many great philosophers like Rene Descartes and the Churchlands. Many philosophers attempt to understand this topic by attempting to reduce materialism to its very essence. The conclusions often vary from philosopher to philosopher, and that is no different between Descartes and Churchland. However, materialism is the more favorable stance as the ability to reduce it can easily done through many means as science.

Searle's "Chinese Room" is a thought experiment that is intended to be an argument against functionalism, and especially against the Computational Theory of Mind(according to which minds are information processing systems).