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Preface
- On average, about half of the population in Western countries believe in the separability thesis = the
thesis that the mind can exist and function separately from the physical world
- About half of them believes that there are 2 separate principles of existence in the world: mental
entities and physical entities

Q1: What is the Conscious Mind?

Taking the mind seriously
- Experiences like tasting coffee, having thoughts about a city, and feeling emotions like happiness –
are examples of mental states – together, such states form the conscious mind
- But the fact that experiences, thoughts and emotions exist beyond any doubt
- Doubting this would in itself be a mental state → thereby proving the point that the conscious mind
does indeed exist

A preliminary characterization of the conscious mind

- E.g.: taste of coffee (made in a bar or by yourself)
- There is a qualitative difference
- How do I establish this difference: by tasting
- There’s a difference between those 2 experiences – a difference in quality
- Experiences, like that of tasting coffee, or seeing beauty, of watching the light bounce off the waves
– all have qualitative aspects
- In philosophical jargon – these qualitative aspects of experiences = qualia (singular quale)
- Or what-it-is-likeness
- A phrase made famous by Thomas Nagel

- This what-it-is-likeness – is used to describe our 1st type of mental states: phenomenal experiences
- All phenomenal experiences have such a feel to them: they are characterized by their qualitative feel
- The term ‘phenomenal’ → refers to how something feels, to how something appears to us, how
something is experiences
- Thus – our 1st type of mental state is formed by phenomenal experiences – which are characterized
by their what-it-is-likeness
- In other words: qualia are the qualitative aspects of phenomenal experiences
- The 2nd type of mental states: the cognitive state = can preliminary be characterized by saying that
they possess intentionality (= the property of being about something – also called aboutness)
- The notion of intentionality is somewhat confusing – because the term ‘intentionality’ may
also refer to the mental state of wanting to do something on purpose

- The archetype of mental state with intentionality is the propositional attitude

- A proposition = is the meaning of a sentence
- You may have different stances/attitudes towards a proposition: like knowing, believing, hoping or
wanting
- It is evident that propositional attitudes have intentionality

- It is conceivable that there are mental states with only one of these properties
- E.g.: the pressure on your eyeballs results in ‘seeing stars’

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- You have an experience that possesses what-it-is-likeness but not aboutness
- At least conceptually – we can distinguish those mental states that are characterized by qualia + those
that are characterized by intentionality
- 3rd type of mental state that possesses both (what-it-is-likeness and aboutness): emotion

The conscious and the unconscious mind

- The relation between the conscious and the unconscious mind – is that the states of the unconscious
mind can become conscious given the right circumstances
- John Searle: ‘The notion of an unconscious mental state implies accessibility to consciousness’
- Good e.g.: memory
- Most of our memories – are unconscious initially – but they can become conscious
- Many states (like the brain state that regulates your heartbeat) – neither belong to the conscious not
the unconscious mind
- Such states of course aren’t conscious, in a sense, they are unconscious
- These states aren’t mental states – because they lack the ability to become conscious states

The mind-body problems

- The central mind-body problem: how the conscious mind fits into the physical world
- Since we have 3 mental types → seem to have 3 mind-body problems
- Problem 1: how do phenomenal experiences fit into the physical world?
- Problem 2: how do cognitive states fit into the physical world?
- Problem 3: how do emotions fit into the physical world?

- 3 types of mental states → defined by just 2 properties: qualia and intentionality → meaning we have
just 2 problems
- Problem 1: how do qualia fit into the physical world?
- Problem 1: how does intentionality fit into the physical world?

Consciousness and cognition

- Cognition = used to refer to the part of the mental states that have aboutness
- Consciousness = often used to refer to the phenomenal states of the mind, mainly because cognitive
states are mental states that can also be conscious states

- Just saw that all cognitive states are mental states that can become conscious
- Thus – many cognitive states are mental states while not being part of the conscious mind –
but they do have the ability to become part of it
- A phenomenal state – is by definition conscious → so it makes sense to use the term ‘consciousness’
as a default for phenomenal states
- This doesn’t mean that cognitive states are never conscious states

Taking science seriously

- Metaphysics = the discipline in philosophy that goes beyond physics (meta – Greek for beyond)
- If the science of physics tells us which physical things in our universe holds – metaphysics
tells us what is beyond (palpable) nature

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- If the debate about the conscious mind were indeed a metaphysical debate → mind and its relation to
the physical world would belong to a domain of the world that is defined as a field science has no say
in
- If this were the case → no branch of science would be able to tell us anything about this
relation

- Metaphysics – is the type of philosophy that does not take into account what science has discovered
about the world: it chooses fantasy and wild speculation over our best (methodological) way to gain
knowledge about and insight into out world
- David Hume – said that books containing claims that had nothing to do with either logic or empirical
data – should be committed to the flames, for they ‘can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion’

- Even though q’s about the conscious mind are classified as philosophical – we cannot answer them
by employing philosophy alone: we also need science
- Philosophy often brings together data from different scientific fields + comes up with testable
hypotheses that scientists themselves might not propose – mainly because they often are focused on
tackling a very specific topic
- Moreover – philosophers are trained to discover false reasoning

Q2: Can the Mind Function Separately from the Brain?

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
- Many people accept the idea that the mind can exist and function separately from the physical world
= The separability thesis
- The inseparability thesis = the idea that the mind cannot function separated from a physical body

- The most influential proponent of the separability thesis in phil. of mind: Rene Descartes
- Skeptics = the philosophers who argue that we can never be certain about anything, and that we will
always have to postpone our judgements

Descartes’ method of doubt

- He was not satisfied with the sceptical conclusion that we don’t know anything for certain: he
desired true knowledge about the world
- He initially accepted the method of the skeptics: he doubted everything he could doubt

- Argued that he should not trust anything/anyone that had deceived him in the past
- This conviction – led him to distrust other humans: since they had not always told the truth
→ they could no longer be trusted as a source of true knowledge: they might be wrong / lie
- The same goes for the senses: e.g. visual illusions
- If our senses sometimes deceive us – how can we be sure they don’t deceive us all the
time?

- Descartes said that he could conceive of a malicious almighty demon: a demon so powerful that it
was able to deceive him into thinking that he had a body / that there was a physical world

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Descartes’ foundation
- Argues that no matter how powerful the evil demon is – he cannot have him doubt his own existence
- And doubting is a way of thinking: if you doubt, you think → if you think you have to exist – for
how else can you think?
- I think therefore I am – cogito ergo sum

- Now he knows at least a little bit more than the skeptic does: he knows that he exists and that he is a
thinking being
- Has found a foundation on which he can build the rest of his knowledge
- The cogito → not an argument but an insight
- He 1st asks himself: How do I know that ‘I think therefore I am’ is absolutely true?
- Answers that it is an insight: that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true’
- Started his search using the method of doubt
- Now he has another method that can help him find truths: those claims that he perceives clearly and
distinctly have to be true

- Says that when he examines the contents of his mind – he sees that he has ideas
- One of these ideas is that of God – according to Descartes, an idea of the most perfect being
- Since he could not himself be the origin of the idea – for he is imperfect – it had to have come from a
being that is, indeed, the most perfect being: God
- This is one of his proofs for the existence of God
- He sees clearly that God has to exist
- God will not deceive him – for in deception there is imperfection
- And since God doesn’t deceive → his ideas about his body and the rest of the physical world
– must actually originate from those corporeal things themselves + they also must exist

Substance dualism (SD)

- Descartes – is both: a thinking thing + physical thing
- These 2 things → substances
- A substance = is that which can exist on its own
- The essential property of the thinking substance / re cogitans = is merely that is thinks
- The essential property of the physical substance / res extensa = is that it is extended – which means
that it is three-dimensional: it has a place in space
- Collision
- This is how physical bodies are moved: by other physical bodies bumping into them, pushing
them
- And it is only because other physical bodies are able to bump into other physical bodies + set
then in motion

- He also makes clear that the thinking substance is not extended

- The thinking substance does not have a place in space
- Since thinking ang physical things are independent substances → they do not need each other to
exist: a body can exist without a mind (e.g.: a rock) and a mind can exist without a body (e.g.: a
ghost)
- Descartes was clearly a defender of the separability thesis

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The Patrick Swayze problem
- Princess Elisabeth – formulated the problem known as the interaction problem: how can the physical
body and the non-physical mind interact with each other?
- The question how the 2 substances interact with each other – this is the interaction problem – which
we may dub the Patrick Swayze problem

- According to Descartes: it is in the pineal gland – that the soul and body can influence each other →
the soul has the power to move the animal spirits in the pineal gland – these spirits in turn transfer
the movement to the rest of the body

- Any physical body can only move because another physical body bumps into it
- This goes for all movement in the entire physical universe
- So, if the soul is not extended – how can it interact with the extended world?

Descartes’ response to the problem

- Says that he can conceive how heaviness moves a body towards the centre of the earth
- The heaviness does this without bumping into the body
- The suggestion is that – a soul can move a body in a similar way – a way that does not require
collision with the body
- This analogy has flaws
- The interaction between mind and body remains a mystery

Occasionalism and parallelism

- Descartes – strongly suggests in his Meditations – THAT God is in some way responsible for the
interaction of the mind and body
- How God is responsible – is not explained + can be interpreted in different ways
- These interpretations: occasionalists + parallelists

- According to occasionalists = the only cause of any even in the world is God
- All natural causes – are not at all true causes but occasional causes
- An occasional cause = an event that is an occasion for God to cause another event
- We should say that according to them – causal interaction between soul and body is
impossible
- It merely seems that there is interaction
- They claim that God is the cause between 2 events – mental or physical

- God is called in another dualist attempt: parallelism = to explain the interaction that seems to take
place between mind and body
- Arnold Geulincx – formulated the idea of a pre-established harmony between the mental and
the physical world
- The will and the movement both depend on the same supreme designer who has made them
in such a way that they run parallel to each other

- A big problem for both occasionalism and parallelism – is that neither is insightful
- In both cases – God is called to the rescue

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- One mystery – how mind and body interact – is replaced by another: how God takes care of the
interaction between mind and body

A way out for substance dualists?

- If substance dualism is correct – it is hard to see how we might ever be able to understand how the
mind and body interact
- There are not many dualists in the fields of phil. of mind, neurology and psych.
- Even though the dualist theory implies that we don’t understand the relation between our minds and
the physical world → dualists still argue that we might be able to provide good reasons to prove that
substance dualism is the correct position in the mind-body debate

Parapsychology
- Many parapsychologists – claim from the outset that they investigate the paranormal: they accept
from the start that parapsychological phenomena exist
- Within this understanding of parapsych. – the separability thesis is accepted by default
- There are many claims about the paranormal
- So how do we proceed?
- 2 case studies:
- In each case – positive evidence for the reality of the phenomenon would be sufficient to
show that opponents of the separability thesis are wrong
Clairvoyance
- Term clairvoyance = refers to the alleged ability of some people to gain info about a person, an
event, or an object in a way that doesn’t use normal senses
- It is supposed to be an instance of extrasensory perception (ESP)
- ESP – is usually seen as evidence for the ability of the mind to function and exist separately from the
body

- Do the real clairvoyants exist?

- The problem with this question – you can only checked 1 alleged clairvoyant at the time
- There were many anecdotes about people finding people, or recovering missing objects – but
closer investigation demonstrates that this has never happened
- Anecdotes cannot be considered evidence
- Sometimes a group of well-documented anecdotes – can become evidence, only if the anecdotes can
be properly matched to the facts
Electronic voice phenomena
- = the idea of this is that you can ‘tune’ a radio/TV to a channel between 2 stations and record the
resulting white noise
- Through these recordings – you can then discover all kinds of messages from the deceased

- Belief in communication with the deceased is widespread but is there any evidence that EVP is real?
- Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC)
- In ITC studies – researchers see faces in the white noised on TV
- EVP research – mainly done by amateurs – but these researchers try to give their
research a scientific status

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- Evaluation of the EVP studies
- 1st point of criticism: it is in no way cleat that the cause of white noise is supernatural
- It is clear that the burden of proof to show that these recordings have no natural origin – lies
with those who accept EVP as verification of the separability thesis
- One possible way of showing that EVP recording are recording of the voices of the dead →
by having clear recordings which cannot be interpreted in different ways + in which the voice
provides info about a person/topic that the researchers didn’t previously have

- These studies show that people have a tendency to interpret meaningless sounds as
meaningful + that repetition of such sounds results in many different interpretations
- This phenomenon of recognizing meaningful patters in random stimuli = pareidolia +
different senses are vulnerable to it

- This phenomenon – that what we perceive is influenced by a theory that tells us what to perceive =
theory ladenness of perception
- EVP studies then – do not provide any support for the separability thesis → also don’t support
substance dualism

Conclusion and preview

- Dualism has a severe problem and no empirical support: it is unable to explain how a non-physical
mind can interact with a physical body
- Scientific studies have shown repeatedly – that there is no reason to think that substance dualism is
correct
- Hence – there is no reason to think about how the 2 substances are able to interact
- Any perspective that rejects science should be abandoned → we should discard SD
- Monist views arguing that there is only 1 substance – obviously have the advantage that there is no
interaction problem to start with