Types of Identity Theory

Type identity occurs when two or more things belong to the same class. Token identity is when two or more things are exactly the same. For instance the sentence A rose is a rose is a rose contains 8 examples of types of words but only 3 tokens; 'a', 'rose' and 'is'.

Type-type mind brain identity assume that 

• a brain state called 'happiness' exists
• happiness as experienced by me will share type identity with happiness as experienced by you. 
• The same brain state will occur whenever happiness occurs. 

The two main problems with this view are

1. do all my moments of happiness have something in common? (For instance, think about the happiness you get from watching a sunset and from riding a roller-coaster). Even if brain states are mental states a simple one to one correspondence might not be possible.
2. can we be sure that the same mental states produce the same brain states in other people? Magnetic resonance scanners allow us to see which part of the brain is active; if I think about the colour red a certain part of my brain will light up. If the same part lights up in someone else does this mean that they are also thinking about red? My idea of red might not be exactly the same as theirs - would this invalidate the scan comparisons? This is known as the benchmark problem.

In the examples above happiness can be constructed in different ways using different tokens of the same type.

Type-token mind brain identity theory admits that the same mental state might have different causes; brain scans taken when I feel happiness might only have some things in common but they will look completely different from scans taken when I am bored or disgusted. This view suffers from the same problem as type-type identity theory in that benchmarking is almost impossible, but it does admit the possibility of multiple realisability. I can experience happiness; so can you; so can that dog; and so can that robot if it has a sufficiently advanced brain. 

In this example happiness is produced in different forms but still by the type of thing you might find in your pocket


Some identity theorists insist that the same mental state must have the same brain state in all cases. This is known as token token identity theory but it is impossible to prove even theoretically as no two instances of happiness are ever the same even in the same individual.

 

No two tokens can ever really be identical even if they have the same value.

Identity over time

Reflections on idealism

Some problems with idealism

How to distinguish between, hallucinations, dreams and reality

If we only experience our own ideas, how can we distinguish between what is real and what is imaginary?

Nigel Warburton counters this objection by stating that 'actual ' physical objects present repeated patterns of sensory information in consistent ways. Our understanding of immediate experiences is always in relation to other experiences; the context of an experience is an important factor.

Idealism may lead to solipsism.

This view states that idealism encourages the view that 'I myself alone' exist, as a mind. If everything else is only an entity in my awareness how do I know that other minds exist?

An idealist might argue that the logic of idealism does not exclude other minds. To believe that some of the things in my mind are there because of the influence of other minds makes more sense than saying that these things are somehow caused by mysterious ‘extra-mental things’. When I talk about other minds at least I know am talking about something based on my own experience.

Warburton suggests that social emotions, such as shame and embarrassment would not make sense to a solipsist.

The problem of persistence or of unnecessary coincidences

How is it possible that the things I experience continue to exist in a consistent way if they are only mental constructs? If material objects really exist their behaviour and attributes would obviously be consistent but for an idealist consistency is merely a matter of co-incidence.

Berkeley argued that a 'Universal Mind' (God) causes and maintains everything that exists. Thanks to that Mind, everything that enters your mind doesn't begin to exist only when it enters your mind. It's already in the Universal Mind. And thanks to that Mind, things don't vanish out of existence when you leave the room. This is not a satisfactory argument.

The problem with causality

Like phenomenalism idealism cannot (without invoking God) explain things being caused by unperceived objects or processes.

Types of behaviourism

Crude behaviourism, mental phenomena are pieces of behaviour (e.g. Watson's identification of thinking with sub‑vocal movements of the larynx).

Methodological behaviourism, a (scientific) research strategy in psychology, making no reference to non‑observable items like experience, or other mental terms, but only to observable phenomena such as behaviour, conduct, response etc.

Philosophical, or logical, behaviourism, talk of mental states is a kind of short‑hand for tally about actual or potential behaviour; there are no 'ghostly' inner states, anger, for example, does not consist in some private inner state but in actualised 'angry' behaviour or in a disposition to behave angrily which is inhibited by certain specifiable conditions. Sentences about mental events can be translated without any loss into sentences about actual or potential behaviour.

Imitated behaviour and morality

Both Plato and Aristotle comment on mimesis or imitation of human behaviour in the arts and particularly in theatre.  

For Plato in the Republic imitation is bad because:  

• An imitation is at three removes from the reality or truth of something.
• Poets and other artists can represent the gods in inappropriate ways.
• Imitation can make even the best people feel sad and sorrowful for no very good reason.

For Aristotle, in the Poetics mimesis can be good. 

• Children naturally imitate those around them and learn from mimesis.  
• Tragedy is the imitation (mimesis) of people and actions. Tragic plays can be educational and provide moral insights encouraging emotional growth.  
• Educational tragedies show how good people experience reversals of fortune due to a fatal flaw (hamartia)  
• The tragedy induces a katharsis, purification through pity and fear, in the audience.

Sensation and reality

Locke argued that objects have ‘real’ or primary properties such as mass or size. These are overlaid in or minds by our perceptions of them – their secondary qualities such as weight or appearance. Bishop Berkeley argues that perceptions are internal rather than external; when we see a banana its yellowness is part of our perception of it and not in the banana itself; Locke argued that what caused the yellowness was a real part of the object.

Berkeley attacks the idea that secondary qualities can exist in the object in a number of ways:

Same quality different sensation. If you hold and ice cube and then put your hand in some tepid water the water feels warm; if you put your hand in very hot water and then into the tepid water the tepid water will feel cold. Since the tepid water cannot be hot and cold at the same time it follows that the perception of temperature must be in the perceiver.

Taste. If I taste an apple it only has a taste at that moment; we cannot say that an untasted apple has a taste. It follows that some qualities only exist when being perceived.

Colour. If two people see the same object from different viewpoints, one might think it was a different colour to the other; since both colours cannot exist in the object at the same time, the colour must exist in the perceiver and not in the object.

Speed. If I stand still as a train passes, the people on the train will appear to be moving; but the people on the train see themselves as still and me as moving. If speed is in the object, how can the people on the train be both moving and see themselves at rest? The quality of speed must be in the perceiver. (also think of the opposite sensation, sometimes you can be stationary next to a moving train and think you are moving).

Size. A coin held near my eye will be bigger than sun. The size, and shape, of objects changes constantly according to the position of the object relative to the perceiver.

Berkeley’s arguments are convincing from a perceptual point of view; no matter how ‘real’ a quality might be, we only ever perceive it through our senses. We only ever deal with what Locke would consider secondary qualities.

Berkeley's goes on to argue that it is impossible for something to exist without being perceived: that is:

esse est percipi, (Latin "To be is to be perceived").

This means that we cannot really say that something exists unless we can either perceive it or imagine perceiving it. This represents an attack on thinkers like Plato or Isaac Newton who imagine that objects exist independently of human perception.

As far as Berkeley is concerned there is no access at all to the objects of perception.

Dualist Solutions to the mind body problem

Interactionism - This is the common sense solution. It seems that physical events cause mental events and that mental events have the ability to cause physical events. It was formulated by Descartes in the Meditations (1641). The problem with this solution is that it does not explain how mental and physical substances can interact. Descartes later proposed that interaction took place in the pineal gland but this just relocated the problem.

Parallelism - This solution was suggested by Leibniz who in other writing is a monist. He said that we need to make a distinction between the mental and the physical in terms of causation. According to his doctrine of pre-established harmony (1686) God has arranged things in advance so that minds and bodies

are in harmony with each other; mental and physical events coincide but do not interact. 

Occasionalism - This was proposed by Nicholas Malebranche (1675) amongst others. Like Hume, Malebranche argued that there was no necessary connection between cause and effect. Unlike Hume he attributed the apparent connection between cause and effect to the direct intervention of God.

 

Epiphenomenalism - This view was advanced by Huxley (1874)and states that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but mental events have no causal role in any physical events. Behaviour is caused by muscles that respond to neural impulses, and neural impulses come from other neurons or from sense organs. Huxley compared mental events to a steam whistle that adds nothing to the work of a locomotive.

Doubt, uncertainty and science

According to this article doubt and uncertainty are key concepts that people should learn to appreciate more. The web magazine Edge asked 'What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?' and the overwhelming answer was greater tolerance for doubt and uncertainty.

The problem, it seems, is that people look to science for definitive answers, which as any empiricist will tell you, is not possible in the world of experience. One scientist commented that 'the idea of something being "scientifically proven" was practically an oxymoron.'

Realism

Naive Realism states that there are two things involved in interacting with an object, the perceiver and the object. 

Locke's scientific realism overcomes some of the problem's of naive realism by identifying primary and secondary qualities in objects. Thus, primary qualities like mass are real but secondary qualities like weight are affected by the perceiver.

Representative realism states that there are three things, the perceiver, the perception and (possibly) the object.

By breaking naive realism's direct link between the object and the perceiver representative realism centres knowledge of the external world in the perceiver's mind. We can no longer be certain that the external world is as we perceive it.