PHIL 100W Study Guide - Qualia, Epiphenomenalism, Occasionalism
1 Dec 2014
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Document Summary
Mental states are subjective, but brains, like all physical objects are not. Mind and matter are 2 different sorts of things or substances. Bodies exist in time and space and interact by physical causation; minds exist in time alone and ideas interact by inference, association, etc. Interaction is a difficult problem for substance dualism. Descartes (cartesian dualism) claims that interaction runs in both directions. Epiphenomenalism is also a possibility (there is physical-mental causation, but not mental-physical). But, at best, this works for the qualia. ** qualia the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena: popular dualism. Tries to lessen problem by locating the mind in space (usually in head) & postulating some sort of mental energy to do the causal work. Not clear how postulating a mysterious energy helps since it is mysterious, doesn"t explain: property dualism. World composed of one kind of stuff that has 2 kinds of properties.
