Deck 4: Mind

Question 1

Explain why Ryle refers to the "official doctrine" as "the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine." How well do you think this metaphor addresses the problems in the "official doctrine"?

Answer 1

good essay will:
Describe the way bodies and minds are defined in the "official doctrine."
Explain why Ryle calls this view "the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine."
Assess the strength of the metaphor in revealing issues of body-mind interaction.

Question 2

What is a category mistake? Explain by first providing an example of your own and then by comparing it with an example of Ryle's. Be sure to explain the essential features they share.

Answer 2

No Answer

Question 3

What is the "official doctrine"? Explain its main elements.

Answer 3

No Answer

Question 4

Ryle refers to the dogma of the ghost in the machine as "the official doctrine."

Question 5

According to Ryle's metaphor, the body is the ghost in the machine.

Question 6

According to the "official doctrine," the body is private and unconnected to other bodies.

Question 7

According to the "official doctrine," the body exists in space and time, whereas the mind only exists in time.

Question 8

To think of the "average taxpayer" as a fellow citizen is to commit a category mistake according to Ryle.

Question 9

The ghost in the metaphor of the ghost in the machine is the

A) Body.
B) Mind.
C) Brain.
D) Both b and

Question 10

According to Ryle, most __________ subscribe to "the official doctrine."

A) Philosophers.
B) Psychologists.
C) Religious teachers.
D) All of the above.

Question 11

A category mistake involves

A) The inability to use a concept correctly.
B) A confusion about what language one is speaking.
C) A logical fallacy.
D) All of the above.

Question 12

According to the "official doctrine," bodies

A) Exist in space and time.
B) Follow all mechanical laws.
C) Are known through introspection.
D) Both a and

Question 13

Minds, according to the "official doctrine,"

A) Exist in space and time.
B) Follow all mechanical laws.
C) Are known through introspection.
D) Both a and

Question 14

Transactions between mind and body, according to the "official doctrine,"

A) Are physical events.
B) By definition are neither physical nor mental.
C) Are mental events.
D) Exist in space and time.

Question 15

Explain the main elements of the view Ryle is criticizing. Then briefly state his main criticism of it.

Question 16

Take one of Ryle's examples of a category mistake and explain what mistake is being made in your own words.

Question 17

Do you agree with Ryle that the "official doctrine" rests on a category mistake?

Question 18

In your opinion, which is more plausible-dualism or materialism? Explain.

Question 19

Why does Taylor state that it is just as good to reason that since people think, they must have souls that think, as it is to reason that they must have bodies that think?

Question 20

Do you agree with Taylor that it makes no sense to posit what must be added to a body to make it a person?

Question 21

According to Taylor, dualism denies that people have bodies.

Question 22

Dualism is the view that the mind is real and the body is an illusion.

Question 23

Taylor argues that, with the exception of souls, there is a difficulty in seeing how anything thinks or feels.

Question 24

Taylor argues that there are no positive properties of souls that we can point to in order to explain how they convert mere bodies into persons.

Question 25

According to Taylor, a dualist must explain the connection between the mind and the body.

Question 26

According to Taylor, it is difficult to explain how personal and psychological predicates apply to

A) Souls.
B) Bodies.
C) Both a and
D) Neither a nor b

Question 27

Dualists face the problem of

A) Explaining the existence of physical objects.
B) Explaining what a soul or mind adds to a body to result in a person.
C) Explaining the afterlife.
D) Explaining how physical bodies can have feelings.

Question 28

The dualist claims that the self has a body

A) In the same sense as one "possesses" a piece of jewelry.
B) In the same sense as one "occupies" a house.
C) In the same sense as one "has" a computer.
D) None of the above.

Question 29

According to Taylor, dualisms arise because of

A) Bodies can think.
B) The alleged disparity between persons and physical objects.
C) Minds occupy space as well as time.
D) Both a and c

Question 30

Dualists claim that

A) Persons are different from animals.
B) Persons are more evolved than animals.
C) Animals have souls.
D) Animals have morality.

Question 31

Taylor believes that a soul

A) Converts a mere body to a person.
B) Survives the body in death.
C) Has understandable properties.
D) Does not have any properties that make sense.

Question 32

What are the two views about the self presented by Taylor? Explain the main claims of each.

Question 33

In your own words, give one argument against materialism. Do you find it convincing? Explain.

Question 34

What does Taylor think is the attraction of dualism? What is its most serious flaw?

Question 35

What were Descartes's reasons for being a substance dualist? What are some of the problems Churchland sees with Cartesian dualism? Do you agree with Churchland's criticisms?

Question 36

One argument Churchland mentions in favor of dualism is that many of the major religions support the existence of a soul. Explain the two problems that Churchland sees with this "argument from religion."

Question 37

What does Churchland mean by the "relative explanatory impotence" of dualism?

Question 38

Substance dualists have a full explanation of what the nonphysical mind substance is like.

Question 39

Descartes believed that language and reasoning were functions of the brain.

Question 40

Property dualists think that there is no such thing as a special nonphysical substance.

Question 41

Epiphenomenalists believe that your beliefs and desires don't affect your actions.

Question 42

Dualists argue that some mental phenomena-like sense experience-can't be reduced to the physical.

Question 43

According to Churchland, the biggest defect of substance dualism is that its characterization of the mind is almost entirely negative.

Question 44

Ockham's Razor says that we should prefer the simpler hypothesis, all things being equal.

Question 45

Emotion and consciousness are strongly affected when the brain is physically affected.

Question 46

According to Churchland, dualism is the most widely held view of the mind among

A) Philosophers.
B) Scientists.
C) The public at large.
D) All of the above.

Question 47

Every form of dualism holds that

A) The conscious mind is a nonphysical thing.
B) There is something nonphysical in the nature of consciousness.
C) The mind is the same thing as the brain.
D) Mental states have no effect on the physical world.

Question 48

Descartes is a famous

A) Substance dualist.
B) Property dualist.
C) Epiphenomenalist.
D) Materialist.

Question 49

A substance dualist believes that the mind is

A) The same thing as the brain.
B) A purely physical system with only physical properties.
C) A physical substance that has nonphysical properties.
D) A nonphysical substance with no mass or position in space.

Question 50

According to Churchland, __________ is a form of substance dualism.

A) Cartesian dualism.
B) Epiphenomenalism.
C) Popular dualism.
D) Both a and

Question 51

One challenge substance dualism faces is explaining

A) How can a nonphysical substance interact with a physical body.
B) How can a physical system perform complex reasoning.
C) How can a physical system have nonphysical properties.
D) How can a mental state be reduced to a mere physical state.

Question 52

A property dualist believes that the mind is

A) A spiritual substance that has spatial properties.
B) A purely physical system with only physical properties.
C) A physical system that has nonphysical properties.
D) A nonphysical substance, with no mass or position in space.

Question 53

Property dualists focus on special mental properties such as

A) Telepathy or other parapsychological phenomena.
B) Physical events in the brain and nervous system.
C) Life after death or reincarnation.
D) Having a pain or having a sensation of red.

Question 54

According to the argument from introspection

A) Many major religions support the idea of an immaterial soul.
B) Our thoughts, desires, and emotions do not feel like physical properties of a neural system.
C) A nonphysical substance could not interact with a physical body.
D) Our mental properties must have evolved as humans evolved.

Question 55

According to the argument from irreducibility

A) Some mental phenomena can't be reduced to a merely physical explanation.
B) A nonphysical substance could not interact with a physical body.
C) Our mental properties must have evolved as humans evolved.
D) Dualism offers the only possible explanation of parapsychological phenomena.

Question 56

Descartes believed that a physical system such as a brain could never achieve human levels of reasoning and language use. Therefore, he concluded that our minds must be nonphysical substances. How does Churchland respond to this point?

A) Computers are good at reasoning and use computer languages, so Descartes was wrong.
B) Computers can only use simple artificial languages, so Descartes might have been right.
C) There are a lot of other things that computers can't do, so Descartes might have been right.
D) We know now that nonphysical substances are no good at reasoning, so Descartes was wrong.

Question 57

Some dualists argue that their theory is the only way to explain parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy and telekinesis. How does Churchland respond to this argument?

A) He agrees that those phenomena are real, but can explain them without dualism.
B) He agrees that those phenomena are real and that dualism is best at explaining them.
C) He thinks those phenomena are probably not real, but if they were, dualism would be able to explain them.
D) He thinks those phenomena are probably not real, but if they were, dualism would have no explanation of them.

Question 58

"Ockham's razor" forms an argument against dualism because

A) Dualism cannot explain all of the phenomena to be explained.
B) Dualism has fewer explanatory resources available.
C) A theory that matches world religions is preferable to a theory that does not.
D) A theory with just physical stuff is simpler than a theory with both physical and nonphysical stuff.

Question 59

Churchland's argument from neural dependence points out that drugs and injuries affecting the brain can have very strong impacts on reasoning, emotion, and consciousness. He believes that this shows that reasoning, emotion, and consciousness

A) Don't involve any nonphysical properties.
B) Take place in the brain, not in a nonphysical mental substance.
C) Are mediative functions of the brain.
D) Can be explained by a dualist theory of mind.

Question 60

According to Churchland's argument from evolutionary history, humans are the result of evolution and

A) A nonphysical mind-substance would be an evolutionary disadvantage.
B) The human species hasn't been around long enough to evolve nonphysical minds.
C) Since evolution is a purely physical process, humans are purely physical creatures.
D) We used to have nonphysical minds, but have evolved since then.

Question 61

Why might someone be a property dualist instead of a substance dualist?

Question 62

What do you think is the best argument in favor of dualism? Explain it as if you were trying to persuade someone that dualism was true.

Question 63

What do you think is the best argument against dualism? Explain it as if you were trying to convince someone that dualism was false.

Question 64

What does Nagel mean by "the subjective character of experience"? What kinds of organisms have experiences with a subjective character? Do you agree with Nagel that there can be no "objective character of experience"?

Question 65

What is the significance of reflection on what it is like to be a bat with respect to the mind-body problem?

Question 66

What does it mean to claim that there are facts beyond the reach of human concepts?

Question 67

According to Nagel, conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon that occurs at many levels of animal life.

Question 68

According to Nagel, we cannot capture everything about what it is like to be a bat in a purely physical description.

Question 69

Nagel argues that we can understand what it is like to be a bat in terms of concepts we apply to understand the experience of other human beings.

Question 70

Nagel argues that there are no facts about the world beyond the reach of human concepts.

Question 71

The facts of experience, according to Nagel, are only accessible from one point of view.

Question 72

According to Nagel, the fact that an organism has conscious experiences means that

A) Substance dualism must be true.
B) There is something it is like to be that organism.
C) The organism has a soul.
D) Both a and

Question 73

According to Nagel, human concepts are

A) The only possible concepts.
B) What we use to understand each other's experiences.
C) The material for our imagination.
D) Both b and

Question 74

Realism about the subjective domain is the view that

A) There is nothing it is like to be a bat.
B) Minds are separate from bodies.
C) Minds are identical to bodies.
D) There is something it is like to be a particular conscious organism.

Question 75

Belief in the subjective character of experience implies

A) That there are no facts beyond the reach of human concepts.
B) The existence of facts beyond the reach of human concepts.
C) An objective character of experience.
D) The impossibility of communication.

Question 76

According to Nagel, we are unable to experience what a bat does because

A) Bats do not have consciousness.
B) Bats do not have language.
C) We do not perceive the world primarily by sonar.
D) We cannot agree on what bats experience.

Question 77

The facts of experience, according to Nagel, are accessible only from

A) A particular point of view.
B) A collective point of view.
C) An authoritative point of view.
D) A God's eye view.

Question 78

Why did Nagel choose to illustrate his point with the example of bats? Be sure to explain both his main point and how the example illustrates it.

Question 79

Do you agree with Nagel's claim that there may be facts that are not intelligible in terms of human concepts? Explain.

Question 80

Does Nagel's discussion raise a problem for materialism? Explain.