Philosophy of Mind 3 - The Identity Theory

In this video, I examine the mind-brain identity theory.
Both Mary's Room and multiple realizability have a vast literature, of which I had enough time only to scratch the surface. For more on these topics, see:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/qua...
plato.stanford.edu/entries/mul...
Re 24:27, two articles arguing for the inconceivability of zombies:
www.imprint.co.uk/cottrell/jcs...
pp.kpnet.fi/seirioa/cdenn/unzo...

[@TheBlackcairo]

I study Philosophy at a UK top 10 Uni and you put my lecturer to shame. Fantastically clear and exceptionally educational. Thank you!

[@plopper_guy53]

I wish lecturers would put it as simple as possible instead of including useless jargon.

[@RagingBlast2Fan]

These are awfully educational. I'm really impressed with the manner in which you present the theory, going over the arguments in favor, and against it. You talk about what made identity theory appealing, and then you examine the many different and varying reasons that made most contemporary philosophers to think of identity theory as utterly vacuous. This is definitely academic material. The form in which it is presented is elegant ...and entertaining, whereas most "professional" philosophers address the subject at hand in a dull form, I find. I'll always be on the lookout for more of this series. You got me hooked for sure! I appreciate your work.

[@PesMe]

very helpful as i prepared from your videos for my exam on philosophy of mind

[@oliverh2088]

I study philosophy at a global top 15 university and can safely say you explained Identity Theory vastly better than my professor. Thank you and keep it up!

[@dilrajkaur6430]

This video is helping me study my 'mind and consciousness' philosophy topic. I am so so thankful for this channel you have created. God bless you Kane B. I support this way of educating us lost souls :) Hope you have a good day and I will continue to watch these and gain more knowledge about different topics in philosophy and other topics as well of course :) thanks!!

[@YahyaBenyahi]

Feel the fire!

[@Neonblaa]

You are well spoken and serve the concepts on a platter. Loved it!

[@jodielea9526]

All of your philosophy of mind videos have been an amazing revision tool for my upcoming a2 exams. Would you be able to do any videos on morality (utilitarianism, relativism, emotivism etc)? Best philosophy videos on youtube!

[@matthewa6881]

Excellent lecture thank you. Been trying to figure out some of the questions you covered. Very helpful

[@namirisa2692]

Thank you thank you thank you! Finding your channel was a blessing!

[@countedcrowzero]

Ey. You the real MVP.

[@NatureFreak1127]

Absolutely brilliant, thank you!

[@carolinemaciag]

thank u. this added 3 pages to my paper. i feel blessed

[@lotusleo1]

thanks a lot dear..you are an awesome teacher. .keep on posting good work..

[@Tschoo]

I also agree that you can explain philosophy in an exceptionally convient manner!

[@abeldeleon6081]

Thank you! I was wondering if you could make a note document for each presentation? I really enjoy your videos.

[@alexisphilippou2414]

Great stuff -- exceptionally clear.

[@ellanassar9189]

Extremely helpful. Much appreciated!

[@dhanyoktaviany7029]

well i almost give up on my philosophy presentation next week which is about identity theory, but thanks dude!!!!... you save me

[@nickpharo5300]

Great series man!

[@kirasussane1556]

Thanks for this very helpful video. Wondering if you have or could make a video about supervenience and mental states?

[@dav__71]

Doing philosophy of mind at University of Sydney. Basically the same as the class we had...this filled in the gaps in a more illumination way I thought.

[@rosajanerocks]

Brilliant video, I've learnt more from your youtube videos than any textbook or teacher. I'm just finding the distinction between "token" and "type" identities white difficult. Any chance you could briefly clarify it for me? Thank you!

[@kononoism]

Your videos are just perfection. Moar plz.

[@yourfutureself3392]

I think that the response to one of the first objections you talk about fails (the one about the red car). I could grant that it's the car that is red and not something mental when you're percieving, but what about when you imagine, dream, hallucinate, etc.? M: mental image of a blue triangule P: physical process identical to the mental image T: triangularity B: blueness P1: M is T and B P2: P is ~T and ~B C: M≠P Mental images obviously have colour and shapes that neural processes simply lack. It can't be the objects that have colour and shape because hallucinations and dreams don't correspond to any external object. The response also assumes direct realism, which is incompatible with identity theory and most forms of physicalism.

[@kosgoth]

I would reject that as a physicalist(just in this case). Mental states are the experience of the colour. If you can trigger the mental state you experience the colour. If Mary doesn't know how to trigger the mental state that is visualising red, she doesn't know all physical processes related to red. Hallucinations and dreams correspond to mental states which are physical, there isn't an incompatibility here.

[@yourfutureself3392]

@@kosgoth what premise of my argument do you reject? P1 or P2? That would help me understand your point better.

[@kosgoth]

@@yourfutureself3392 P seems to be miss defined. P Causes M or P produces M. P is the "information of M" but has to be interpreted as part of a larger process. It's like an attachment that can trigger the recall or production of that information. P2 Is that as the process is run, both tringle-ness and redness are experienced, ie. M. A useful analogy might be the difference between the information of a song on a USB, and software playing that song. This is a common barrier in philosophy where terms aren't described clearly because language has a level of ambiguity, and philosophy exploits it. Blue is physical in 2 ways and conceptual in 2 ways as well. Blue is the wavelength of light between 450 and 495 nanometers experienced or not(concept). It's also what we call the object that reflects light in those wavelengths eg the blue car(physical). And then it's the neurons firing to give us the experience of blue(concept), and you could call those neurons the "blue experience neurons" (physical) but if they aren't firing there isn't an experience of blue occurring but they still exist. Amnesia and separately split brain patents are probably worth reading about.

[@yourfutureself3392]

@@kosgoth "P causes M or P produces M" If P causes M, then P is not identical to M and therefore you are committed to the conclusion of my argument. Do you accept that P≠M? If their not the same to you, then you're not a reductive physicalist. You're a non-reductive one. It seems to me that physicalists are incapable of properly expressing their view without appealing to abstract analogies and such, unlike all other mind theorists. So please try to, when expressing your view, express it in a precise way, appealing to dependence relations and/or identity relations between physical entities/procceses/properties and mental ones. So, (according to you) is P=M? Or is M somehow dependant on P (either through grounding, causation, emergence, functional realization, etc.)?

[@kosgoth]

​@@yourfutureself3392 It's an emergent property. The heat caused by running isn't the running itself, and neither is the physical displacement running. Arguments from analogy aren't fallacious. Are you an idealist or?

[@heliosho]

I am impressed! Thank you very much

[@pareshhate2755]

Why is it that David Lewis's Identity Theory is also called Analytic Functionalism? I read somewhere that it has got something to do with analytic propositions, but I'm not too sure. Is his theory mainly a version of identity theory or usual functionalism? Or is it something entirely different?

[@hemantdopeg9]

Thank you so much

[@drewprescott345]

Do you know how the identity theory might relate to the argument of the inverted spectrum?

[@maximilyen]

Very good.

[@saitcam9973]

Hi Sir, I didnt understand you explained identity theory in which minutes of video? I didnt see your definition of IT.

[@mentalistp.s.9915]

great video! thank you so much! I found the treasure !!!! It's so helpful on my revision for the upcoming exam!!!

[@StephenPaulKing]

What is the argument against Dual aspect monism?

[@SuperEllese]

Amazing

[@kyleschmitt9964]

Something else I don’t understand about the zombies objection is that it seems to be criticizing a physicalist theory for not being able to explain something that is physically impossible?

[@robheusd]

18:19 - An anology: Suppose you are watching this video and see the sllides and hear the void signal using your normal browser, but then go on to inspect the actual signal that is being send over Wifi or cable to your computer and write it out as a datastream of bits. Without knowing the underlying algortithms and semantics performed on that stream of bits of all the in between layers of data processing and data link and network and transport layers of all the different protocols that operate on this datastream to ultimate present you in the application layers with the video and audio signal, you would not be able to make sense of that datastream of bits. Just as an (approximate) analogy of how brain activity and perception of sensory perception would relate to each other. PS. the statement "redness is a property of the thing you are experiencing" - that statement is false, because the only physical property is the wavelength of the light and its intensity, and since certain materials due to their atomic structure absorb some part of the light spectrum and reflect the remaining parts, the visual perceptors only receive the reflected parts of the spectum of light that was shined on the car (so, what part of the spectrum is reflected is also dependent on the spectrum of the light source) but the property "red" is not really there in the light, only it's wavelength and intensity. The redness of the incoming light is a property of how the visual cortext processing incoming signals from light with specific wavelenghts works, cause the experience of "red". And there are many phenomena on hand here that can influence how we see a particular colour, as it not only depends on the intensity and wavelengt of the incoming light, but may be influenced by what we have seen a short time before, where the appearence of the colour may change due to having been exposed to a different colour just before that experience. There is plenty of scientific material on how all kind of visual deceptions work that can show at least in part of how our brain operates on different visual stimuli. Examples such as seeing motion when looking at a still picture, experiencing exactly the same colour as different due to surrounding information, etc. etc. 41:10 - On the "multiple realizability" of mental states. In the same anology as before, suppose that some of these intermediate layers change (for example a change of network protocol or because YT decides to use a different video and/or audio format. What we see on the screen and what we hear on the audio signal is identical to what we got before, but again, if we then inspect the physical datastream bit by bit, it has of course changed due to the changes in for example the video format or the network protocol we use. So, identical experiences can be produced by different physical states (the physical datastream sent to our computer). So what is the problem? And not only can diffrent physical states produce the same mental state, but the opposite can be true also, the same physical state producing different mental state - try for instance to drive a given route on one day, and do that again another day when the only difference is that all external circumstances (weather, road,. traffic, light ect) are the same but now you have drank alcohol - your driving experience wil be quite different. But then of course your brain state is quite different then the day before. But as yet another computer analogy, a series of lets say 8 bytes, read by a computer program and when asked to output its value can produce different outputs, just by interpreting those bytes differently (for example as 8 different characters or 4 short integer values or 2 floating point values). Same input, yet diffrent output.

[@enlightenedturtle9507]

Your pronounciation was perfect

[@enlightenedturtle9507]

...of the feigl dude. Thanks for the constant stream of high quality content

[@StephenPaulKing]

The Mary's Room gedanken has a problem that can be understood using computer science. In CompSci there is a distinction between Syntax and Semantics. These are mutually irreducible. stackoverflow.com/questions/17930267/what-is-the-difference-between-syntax-and-semantics-in-programming-languages

[@yokro7401]

you are fucking amazing , I hope things have worked out for you well

[@21stcenturyoptimist]

Chalmers uses circular logic on his logically possible philosophical zombie. He already concluded that qualia are not physical so he can argue that its logically possible for a body that is exactly the same but does not produce qualia.

[@seth956]

Language seems to always be the question and the answer.

[@amrelnashar517]

The distinction between logical behaviorism and identity theory is really artificial. The point of logical behaviorism was to define the mind using third person accessible properties (behaviour, which I guess was the only third person accessible behaviour at that time). The logical behaviourist sees a correlation between mental states and certain third person accessible properties (which is behavior), and so defines mental states to be the behaviour. As science and technology progressed, we get access to more diverse third person accessible properties (brain imaging+behaviour). Thus following the logical behaviourist mindset, we just define mental states to be chemical/physical state of the brain. In that sense, identity theory is really still logical behaviourism. You really could have just don't one lecture about both logical behaviourism and identity theory. They are really the same thing, and we don't need two separate terms. Identity theory= logical behaviourism in addition to more diverse accessible third person properties , that's it! In fact, identity theory just suffers from the same problems as logical behaviourism. In the last video, u mentioned that if you touch a hot stove u can see your behaviour of pulling your hand (also others can see it), but you also get a sensation of pain which others can't detect. The same problem persists with identity theory as it is just logical behaviourism. Suppose I have an electronic device to measure your brain signals, and I output the results on the screen of a projector. You touch a hot stove, so a peak of brain electrical activity shows up in the projector. You can see this peak of electrical activity, the public can also see it. However, you also get a pain sensation which is not accessible to others except you. So we have the same dilemma again with identity theory just like how we have it with logical behaviourism, because identity theory is really just logical behaviourism. Why the heck would you not count the electrical activity of a person's brain as not part of their behaviour ????!!

[@tenzinsoepa7648]

49:00

[@user-xn2hf9re8r]

f o l k - rhymed with oak; not fock as you pronounce it apart from that brilliant and thank you for posting

[@Temi.4L]

39:51

[@21stcenturyoptimist]

My response to multiple realizability: 2+2=4 1+3=4

[@DesertEagel1995]

The thing abotu multiple realizability is that its not at all clear thats its "2+2" and "1+3", which obviously then amount to the same thing by supposedly equaling 4, which is a rather clear calculation at which you arrive even if youve never seen 4 things at once, but rather "100-78" and "10^6" equaling the colour yellow (something that is qualitatevly entirely different). The only reason for why we even suspect that a thing is conscious is not because we acquire first-hand experience of their internal mental states, but we just see how things behave and conclude from that that those things must be conscious, even if they have nothing resembling a brain. But why so? If something would indeed have consciousness, yet not the motoric abilities to behave similarily to us and neither a brain, we would immidiately think that this thing lacks consciousness. But why so? Did you really think that this complex issue that some of the worlds smartest people try to wrap their head around would be solved by this?

[@yourfutureself3392]

From what you lay out, it clearly follows that 2+2=1+3. However, the physical state that is identical to pain in one species is not identical to the physical state that is identical to pain in another species.

[@hamdaniyusuf_dani]

If Mary knows everything about color, she would know about color dispersion, so she would know when someone is tricking her.