Identity Theory Of Mind

426 Words2 Pages
The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is identical to the brain. In taking the identity theory (in its various forms) as a species of physicalism, I should say that this is an ontological, not a translational physicalism. It would be absurd to try to translate sentences containing the word ‘brain’ or the word ‘sensation’ into sentences about electrons, protons and so on. Here I shall take the identity theory as denying the existence of such irreducible non-physical properties. Woody Allen’s chapter portrays a dinner-date and an awkward sexual encounter from the perspective of a human body as a NASA-like control center run by little men. The managers in the brain pass directions down to the minions in the stomach, the eyes, ears, etc. — making decisions and coping with physical hurdles within the various departments. The entire minutiae of the sexual experience is broken down into orders and procedures — from the interference from the guilt department to the downloading of baseball statistics to distract the sperm from premature launch. My argument is that the definitive characteristics of any sort of experiences in the mind and brain are its casual role, its syndrome of most typical causes and effects. But materialists believe that these casual roles which belong by analytic necessity to experience belong in fact to certain physical states. Since those physical states possess the definitive characteristics of experience, they must be the experiences. This clip supports place in the same way that the mind and brain worked together simultaneously during the sexual in counter. If brain and mind were the exact same thing then the man would of have had no problem getting an erection. All that would have needed to happen was the turning
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