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A Philosophical Ghost Story |
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Tuesday, 31 October 2006 |
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Halloween special: in Katherine Power's short story a materialist ghost examines his puzzling immaterial existence – or is it material after all? How odd that Descartes should be right after all! (Well, almost.) I so wish I could let you know, sweetness, but, without a body, us souls are quite useless. You are a lecturer now. I'm so proud. I watch you explain mind body dualism to first years. I wonder if ‘watch’ is the right way of putting it – if I still see, strictly speaking… “Descartes,” you say, “was a substance dualist.” |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 December 2006 )
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The Notebook |
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Monday, 30 October 2006 |
 Where is the mind?
Katherine Power's philosophical short story explores the advantages of having an extended mind. It is preceded by a short introduction to its subject matter, the extended mind theory. A common view amongst philosophers of mind is that mental states are 'physically realised'. This means that, if I believe that Magritte was a painter, there is something physical in the world which makes up that belief. Let's say the belief is realised by a neural pattern of activation in my brain. If we took that pattern away, and did not replace it with another physical state serving the same role, I would no longer believe that Magritte was a painter. If you agree so far, you might ask what kind of physical states realise mental ones. Do they have to be brain states? Not according to Andy Clark and David Chalmers. In their 1998 paper "The Extended Mind" they argue that mental phenomena can be realised outside the skull. To convince us, they compare an ordinary case of belief with a case where an external object, a notebook, plays a crucial role. Clark and Chalmers argue that the differences between the two cases are superficial and, therefore, that they are both cases of belief. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 January 2007 )
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