PP111 Lecture 8: PP111 Lecture 8 Notes.docx
Document Summary
Every kind of mental state is (=) a kind of physical: reductionist materialism: state of the brain, water is h20, lightening is an atmospheric electrical discharge, a belief that it is raining is a particular electrochemical state of the cerebral cortex, (generalization of the mind and brain states, reductionist materialism accepts generalizations about mind brain identities. If feeling amused just is an increase in electrochemical activity in the inferior temporal gyrus, then anything lacking an inferior temporal gyrus would be incapable of feeling amused: objection 1: reductionist materialism is chauvinistic, could nonhuman animals have minds, could physiologically diverse aliens have minds, could future supercomputers have minds, reductive materialism says no , but: we can"t know the answer to these questions without empirical investigation; to decide without checking is merely chauvinism , we should not be able to meet with aliens and predict in advance.
