PHILOSOPHY
Rationalism: Knowledge in the head/mind
Empirism: Knowledge is from outside
deductive reasoning (general ➡ specific)
inductive reasoning (specific ➡ general)
the mind is in the head // the mind is in the body
the mind is outside // the mind is outside the body
↪THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM ↩
Attempts to address mind-body problem
1) DUALISM (relates to Rationalists' view)
2) MATERIALISM (relates to Empiricists' view)
3) PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM
Issue: If Body dies, then does the Mind die? Renee Descartes proposed theory of dualism. ✅ the mind and body are 2 separate entities
1) Non-physical entity : the mind 2) Physical entity: the body
WEAKNESS in dualism: *if you believe that the mind is separate from the body & something goes wrong with the mind (e.g: schizophrenia), what do you do??
Proposed by Democritus ✅ the only thing that can be truly said to exist is matter ✅ the mind is the brain (= body)
DIFFICULTIES in explaining existence of psychological phenomena (thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, sensory experiences)
"The Chinese Room Argument"
Proposed by Leibniz
✅ everything is living (including items) ✅ everything was created by God in the universe to be in perfect harmony ✅ everything was made of tiny living elements (called monads )
"Monads" 1) do not influence each other 2) one monad cause something, other monads display the effects of that cause
Implication: *mind and body do not interact but they function in parallel as per God's plan
Philosophy & Neuroscience
Philosophy & Language
Philosophy & AI
Consciousness *split-brain patients - consciousness?
1) Language influences thoughts (beliefs)
2) Beliefs affect language
3) Language ≠ Thoughts
consciousness/intelligence
concept of 'emergence' proposed