PHIL 1000 Lecture Notes - Thomas Nagel, Chauvinism, Physicalism
Document Summary
It is potentially chauvinistic to claim that only human beings can be in particular types of mental states. To be a bottle opener, an object must be an object of the same physical type, have the same physical characteristics as object #1 (the standard bottle opener). Object #2 (a can opener) can also be used to remove bottlecaps. To be the mental state pain, a brain process must be one physical type, have the same physical characteristics as object #1 (the human brain in pain). Object #2 (a cat"s brain) belongs to a cat that has just been bitten in the leg by a raccoon, it is howling and limping. However, because the brain process is not the same physical type as. Player a and player b both trying to imitate human intelligence by responding to questions; one of these two is human and the other is a machine program. Interrogator c in a separate place from a and b.
