Online BulletPoints - Consciousness - Blackmore (2nd edition)
What's the problem? CH.1
The problem of consciousness is related to one of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? This is in principle related to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental? Solutions to this problem can be distinguished in monistic theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualistic theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things.
Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Examples of supporters of these monistic theories are the materialists.
In dualism it is a combination of matter (the body) and spirit. The most famous dualist is René Descartes. There are two types of dualism, namely, knowledge of dualism and substance dualism.
The term "psychology" first appeared in the eighteenth century to describe the philosophy of mental life, but it was towards the end of the nineteenth century when psychology was seen as a science. Important psychologists during this period were James, Wundt and Freud. After that behaviorism came under the direction of Watson, who saw psychology as a natural science that should have the goal of predicting and influencing behavior.
Chalmers states that the ambiguities about consciousness can be divided into easy problems and hard problems.
What is it like to be ...? CH.2
Qualia are private qualities, the way someone experiences an experience. Conscious experiences consist of qualia and the problem of consciousness can be reformulated in terms of how the qualia are related to the physical world or how objective brains produce subjective qualia.
To investigate whether qualia can have added value, thought experiments such as Mary's experiment and the experiment of the philosophy zombie can be used. Different reactions are possible here.
Scientists have reacted in different ways to Chalmers' idea that there is a hard question when we talk about consciousness. These reactions can be divided into: (1) the hard problem is unsolvable, (2) the hard problem is solved, (3) it is essential to first solve the easy problem, and (4) there is no hard problem. Churchland even states that the problem is misunderstood.
How do conscious and unconscious activities differ from each other? CH.3
We assume that our subjective feelings and conscious choices cause our actions. If you examine the brain, however, there seems to be no room for this. Information comes through the senses and is then further processed by various parts of the brain. This then ensures the actions of the individual.
Milner and Goodale state that there is a difference between two visual systems:
(1) visual perception and (2) visual-motor control. These systems are related to the ventral and the dorsal route. According to Milner and Goodale, visual motor control is more dominant than visual perception in tasks performed by the brain.
We can generally divide actions into five categories:
(1) actions that are always unconscious, (2) actions that can consciously be controlled, (3) actions that are consciously carried out, but with time unconsciously performed, (4) actions that can be carried out both consciously and unconsciously, and (5) actions that always have to be carried out consciously.
Representational theories can be subdivided into higher-order perception theory (HOP) and higher-order thought (HOT). According to HOP, being aware of a mental condition means monitoring the mental state. HOT states that consciousness is about having a thought about the situation.
