What I am is what I am, Are you what you are, Or what?

What I am is what I am, Are you what you are, Or what?

Minds and Bodies What am I, anyway? Can collections of atoms be the subjects of conscious mental states?

The Big Question

Mind and/or Matter? What am I? What sort of thing am I? Am I intrinsically a mind? A body? Both? Am I a mind that occupies a body? Or am am I simply collection of biological parts? A collection of atoms? Are mind and matter different (sorts of) things?

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Questions Is consciousness simply a biological process? Is subjectivity an illusion? Do I, as the subject of conscious experience, really exist (as subject of consciousness), or is consciousness itself an illusion? What about you? Is your mind/soul simply part of your body? Do you even have a mind/soul?

Am I my brain? Are Mind and Brain the same?

What s in a brain?

A Forest of Brain Cells

Interconnected cells

Individual brain cell

Lots of Interconnections

But where am I? Am I merely a collection of cells?

Are brain cells conscious?

Michael Graziano: NO! And you are (your brain is) nothing but brain cells. So you re not (really) conscious either!

Michael Graziano Princeton University: -Prof. of Psychology and Neuroscience Author of Consciousness and the Social Brain --and Are We Really Conscious? in the New York Times

Graziano [W]hat is the relationship between our minds and the physical world? Here, we don t have a settled answer. We know something about the body and brain, but what about the subjective life inside? Consider that a computer, if hooked up to a camera, can process information about the wavelength of light and determine that grass is green. But we humans also experience the greenness. We have an awareness of information we process. What is this mysterious aspect of ourselves?

Graziano Many theories have been proposed, but none has passed scientific muster. I believe a major change in our perspective on consciousness may be necessary, a shift from a credulous and egocentric viewpoint to a skeptical and slightly disconcerting one: namely, that we don t actually have inner feelings in the way most of us think we do.

G: No Subjective Awareness a new perspective on consciousness has emerged in the work of philosophers like Patricia S. Churchland and Daniel C. Dennett. Here s my way of putting it: How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong.

What is the relationship between our minds and the physical world? [I believe] that we don t actually have inner feelings in the way most of us think we do. How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn t. You might object that this is a paradox. If awareness is an erroneous impression, isn t it still an impression? And isn t an impression a form of awareness?. But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device. I concede that this approach is counterintuitive.

So, according to Graziano He, himself, does not have any subjective conscious impressions. (There is no place for such subjective things in empirical science.) So, you don t have any either. Well, do you have subjective conscious experiences?

The Material World

What s the matter? Matter: The stuff ( substance ) of the world i.e., of the world of things that exists whether or nor we perceive it, whether or not any mind is aware of it. The subject matter of the natural sciences Physics, biology, chemistry, etc. Occupies space, has mass, etc. Descartes and Locke believed in it: Berkeley did not.

Never mind! Are mind and matter the same thing? Is there more to you than your material body? Is consciousness a material (i.e., physical, chemical, biological) process? Could a conscious being exist with no body i.e., even if there were no material substance? Is there a mental substance in addition to a material substance? Is you mind distinct from your brain?

Mind over Matter?

Where in the world is the bubble?

Am I (just) my body? Is my body what I am, Or is it something that I have, That I occupy? Could I (even possibly) exist in a different body? with no body?

Life After Death? If there is such a thing as life after death, then there must be a part of you that continues to exist after the death of your body. So, if you believe in life after death, you are already committed to the idea that you are something distinct from your body i.e., distinct from any material object.

Descartes: Thinking! At last I have discovered it thought. This alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist that is certain.. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks, that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason. The kind of thing that I am is a thinking thing, i.e., the kind of thing that is the subject of conscious experiences.

What kind of fool am I?

What am I? Descartes: A thing that thinks. A thing that: doubts, understands, affirms and denies, will and refuses, imagines and has sense experiences. I am a conscious being, A being that is the subject of consciousness. I am a mind or soul.

Mind For Descartes, a mind is the kind of thing that can be the subject of consciousness. It is the thing which has sensations, the thing which thinks thoughts, etc. Different minds can have different sensations, thoughts, etc., but being the kind of thing that can have sensations, thoughts, etc., is the essence of what it is to be a mind. If there is life after death, it is this thinking thing which continues to exist.

What else am I? Am I also a human body? Do I even know that there are such things as bodies? Might this body (of which I am uncertain) be identical with the I of which I am aware? I am certain that I exist. Could this I be identical to a material body that I am not certain exists?

2 nd Meditation: p. 204 (p. 188 in 14 th ed.) At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true. I am then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks, that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, a thinking thing. Is it possible that this body, of which I am not yet certain, is in reality identical with the I of which I am aware?... [F]or the moment, I won t argue the point, since I can make judgments only about things that are known to me.

Am I my body? At this point, Descartes is certain that he exists, and that he is a mind, i.e., a thinking thing. Is it possible that this mind (that he is certain exists) is identical to some body, to some material object (that he is not certain exists)? In the 2 nd Meditation, he can t rule this out.

The Essence of the Matter

What is body, anyway? In the 2 nd Meditation, Descartes was skeptical of sense experience, and so could not know, with certainty, whether or not any bodies (material objects) existed. But he still had a concept of what material objects must be, if they exist at all. For Descartes, the essence of a material object is that it occupies space.

Essence vs. Accident An essential property: A property a thing can t lose without ceasing to exist. An accidental property: A property a thing can lose and still exist. Is having a mind/having a body essential or accidental?

What is my essence? Descartes: I can conceive of myself existing without a body. E.g., in the after-life, or mind-swaps So, having a body is, at best, an accidental property. I cannot conceive of myself existing without a mind. So having (being) a mind is an essential property. So, my essence (what I really am) consists solely in being a thinking thing i.e., a mind. I have a body, but I am a mind.

Two for the price of one?

Two Substances? Are mind and matter different substances? Are they different kinds of things? Is a (conscious) mind, in essence, a fundamentally different thing than a (material) object? Materialists (Matter only) say no. Dualists (Matter and mind) say yes.

Mind/Body (or Substance) Dualism: There are two distinct fundamental and irreducible sorts of things in the world MINDS Res cogitans Minds Thinking but non-extended things Beings that are subjects of conscious experience, but don t occupy are space BODIES Res extensa Matter Extended but non-thinking things Beings that occupy space but are not subjects of conscious experience.