Question 1

According to Churchland, "There is a vast psychological literature, and a nontrivial neuroscientific literature, on this topic. Some of it powerfully suggests that attention and awareness are pretty closely connected. The approach might of course be wrong, for it is ..."

Accepted Answer

Churchland mentions both psychological and neuroscientific literature which suggests a connection between attention and awareness, indicating an empirical basis for the approach.

Question 2

Churchland says, "What drives the left-out hypothesis? Essentially, a thought-experiment, which roughly goes as follows: we can conceive of a person, like us in all the aforementioned Easy-to-explain capacities (attention, short term memory, etc.), but lacking ..."

Accepted Answer

The left-out hypothesis is based on the idea that we can conceive of a person who has all the same cognitive abilities as us but lacks subjective experience, also known as qualia. The other answer choices are not relevant to the left-out hypothesis.

Question 3

Churchland says, "My suspicion with respect to The Hard Problem strategy is that it seems to take the class of ____________________ to be much better defined than it is. The point is, if you are careful to restrict your focus to the prototypical cases, you can easily be hornswoggled into assuming the class is well-defined."

Accepted Answer

Churchland is suggesting that The Hard Problem strategy, which focuses on the question of how conscious experiences arise from physical processes, assumes that the class of conscious experiences is well-defined. However, Churchland argues that this class is not well-defined and that by focusing only on prototypical cases (e.g. visual experiences) one can easily be led to assume that it is. Thus, B - conscious experiences - is the best choice.

Question 4

Churchland asserts that "The only thing you can conclude from the fact that attention is mysterious, or sensorimotor integration is mysterious, or that consciousness is mysterious, is that we ..."

Accepted Answer

Churchland's statement suggests that these phenomena are not yet fully understood and their mechanisms remain mysterious, but this does not necessarily imply that we cannot answer metaphysical questions or that we are subject to innate intuitions. It simply means that there is more research and investigation needed to fully comprehend these phenomena. The statement also does not suggest that we should avoid ethical dilemmas.

Question 5

According to Churchland, "the mysteriousness of a problem is not a fact about the problem, it is not a metaphysical feature of the universe-it is an epistemological fact about ..."

Accepted Answer

Churchland is suggesting that when we find a problem mysterious or difficult to comprehend, it is not because the problem itself is inherently mysterious, but rather because of our current limitations in understanding it. Therefore, the mysteriousness is an epistemological fact about us, rather than a fact about the problem or the universe.

Question 6

A no longer accepted theory that living organisms contained some special non-physical element or force that gave them life is called ...

Accepted Answer

The theory that living organisms contained some special non-physical element or force that gave them life is known as Vitalism. This theory is no longer accepted by the scientific community.

Question 7

Churchland says that some philosophers have labeled the problem of trying to explain consciousness or conscious experience the Hard Problem.

Accepted Answer

Churchland does indeed say that some philosophers have referred to the problem of explaining consciousness as the "Hard Problem".

Question 8

According to Churchland, "problems such as the nature of short-term memory, long-term memory, autobiographical memory, the nature of representation, the nature of sensory-motor integration, top-down effects in perception-not to mention such capacities as attention, depth perception, intelligent eye movement, skill acquisition, planning, decision-making, and so forth," are the so-called Easy Problems.

Accepted Answer

According to Churchland, these problems are called the "Easy Problems" of consciousness because they are relatively easy to study and understand within the framework of current neuroscience. The "Hard Problem" of consciousness, on the other hand, is the question of how and why subjective experience arises from neural activity, and is seen as much more difficult to solve.

Question 9

The features of consciousness; for example, what it is like to taste ice cream, or to feel pain, are called reductions.

Accepted Answer

The features of consciousness are called qualia, not reductions. Reductions refer to the scientific explanation of how consciousness arises from physical processes.

Question 10

Churchland asks us to consider the following question: "What exactly is the evidence that we could explain all the 'Easy' phenomena and still not understand the neural mechanisms for consciousness?"

Accepted Answer

Churchland suggests that even if we were able to explain all the 'Easy' phenomena (e.g. visual processing, stimulus response, etc.), it is still possible that we would not fully understand the neural mechanisms underlying consciousness.

Question 11

According to Churchland, "There is a vast psychological literature, and a nontrivial neuroscientific literature, on this topic. Some of it powerfully suggests that attention and awareness are pretty closely connected. The approach might of course be wrong, for it is a metaphysical hypothesis."

Accepted Answer

The answer of According to Churchland, "There is a vast...

Question 12

Churchland says, "What drives the left-out hypothesis? Essentially, a thought-experiment, which roughly goes as follows: we can conceive of a person, like us in all the aforementioned Easy-to-explain capacities (attention, short term memory, etc.), but lacking qualia."

Accepted Answer

Churchland does argue that the left-out hypothesis is driven by a thought-experiment in which we conceive of a person lacking qualia while still having other cognitive capacities.

Question 13

Churchland says, "My suspicion with respect to The Hard Problem strategy is that it seems to take the class of logical derivations to be much better defined than it is. The point is, if you are careful to restrict your focus to the prototypical cases, you can easily be hornswoggled into assuming the class is well-defined."

Accepted Answer

The answer of Churchland says, "My suspicion with respect to...

Question 14

Churchland asserts that "The only thing you can conclude from the fact that attention is mysterious, or sensorimotor integration is mysterious, or that consciousness is mysterious, is that we do not understand the mechanisms."

Accepted Answer

Churchland is arguing against the idea that there must be some non-physical, mystical explanation for phenomena like consciousness or attention that we do not yet understand. Instead, he argues that the fact that we currently find these things mysterious only means we have not yet fully understood the underlying mechanisms that give rise to them.

Question 15

According to Churchland, "the mysteriousness of a problem is not a fact about the problem, it is not a metaphysical feature of the universe-it is an epistemological fact about us."

Accepted Answer

Churchland argues that our inability to understand or solve a problem is not due to some inherent mysteriousness in the problem itself, but rather a limitation in our own knowledge or cognitive abilities. Therefore, it is an epistemological fact about us, rather than a metaphysical fact about the problem itself.

Question 16

A no longer accepted theory that living organisms contained some special non-physical element or force that gave them life is called Vitalism.

Accepted Answer

Vitalism was a theory that was popular in the 18th and 19th centuries which believed that living organisms contained a special non-physical element or force that gave them life. However, it is no longer accepted in mainstream scientific thought.

Question 17

What does Churchland mean when she says, "My suspicion with respect to The Hard Problem strategy is that it seems to take the class of conscious experiences to be much better defined than it is. The point is, if you are careful to restrict your focus to the prototypical cases, you can easily be hornswoggled into assuming the class is well-defined"?

Accepted Answer

The answer of What does Churchland mean when she says,...

Question 18

Do you agree with Churchland when she asserts that "The only thing you can conclude from the fact that attention is mysterious, or sensorimotor integration is mysterious, or that consciousness is mysterious, is that we do not understand the mechanisms"?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Do you agree with Churchland when she...

Question 19

Explain what Churchland means when she says, "the mysteriousness of a problem is not a fact about the problem, it is not a metaphysical feature of the universe-it is an epistemological fact about us." Do you agree with Churchland?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Explain what Churchland means when she says,...

Question 20

What is the Vitalism theory, and how does Churchland use its history to her advantage?

Accepted Answer

The answer of What is the Vitalism theory, and how...

Quiz 5: René Descartes Mind and Body