PHIL1003 Lecture 11: Lecture 11B - Physicalism

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22 Oct 2018
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In the 1960s a very famous argument was presented for the conclusion that this cannot possibly be right: Mental states such as pain cannot be identical to any specific physical states of human (or other) nervous systems. The reasoning is simple: take a creature like an octopus, with millions of years of separate evolution and a very different nervous system from humans. But there may be no specific physical property that humans and octopuses share, in virtue of which they both feel pain. If identity theory is true then both (pain = c-fibre firing) and (pain = m- fibre firing) [a placeholder for the physiology of octopus pain]. If pain = cff and pain = mff, then cff=mff. If we want to preserve identity theory, one option is to reject the premise that physiologically different creatures from humans can feel pain. But this seems implausible: even if unpersuaded by the octopus example, what about hypothetical aliens, artificial intelligences etc.

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