“Kripke says that physicalists like me can't explain the 'apparent contingency' of mind-brain identities. He maintains that, if I really believed that pains are C-fibres, then I ought no longer to have any room for the thought that 'they' might come apart. His argument is that, since pains aren't identified via some contingent description, but in terms of how they feel, I have no good way of constructing a possible world, so to speak, where C-fibres are present yet pains absent.” IfsWorldWayFeelsMindMightPainSpeakTermRoomsBrainIdentityOughtArgumentLike MeDescriptionAbsentGood WayContingency Author:David Papineau
“I say that there is nothing deficient about our current theoretical grasp of mind-brain identities. The problem is only that they are counter-intuitive.” MindProblemBrainIdentityCurrentsIntuitiveTheoretical Author:David Papineau
“Of course, there remains the question of why we should find mind-brain identities so persistently counter-intuitive, if they are true. But this is a simple psychological question, and there are a number of plausible explanations. Indeed this is a topic that is quite extensively discussed outside philosophy, by developmental psychologists and theorists of religion among others, under the heading of 'intuitive dualism'. It is rather shocking that so few of the many philosophers working on 'the explanatory gap' are familiar with this empirical literature.” IfsShouldMindPhilosophyCoursesLiteratureSimpleNumbersBrainIdentityRemainsPhilosopherFamiliarPsychologicalExplanationGapsTopicsShockingIntuitivePsychologistHeadingsPlausibleTheoristsDualismDevelopmental Author:David Papineau
“The use of neuroscientific data to help resolve phenomenological questions is proving a common theme in much contemporary thinking about the mind. How rich are the contents of visual perception? Does vision only tell us about shapes and colours, or does it also represent higher categories like lemon or umbrella?” ThinkingMindDoeHelpingUseCommonVisionRichHigherShapesProvePerceptionContemporaryDataThemeVisualsColourResolveCategoriesLemonsUmbrellaVisual Perception Author:David Papineau
