 Today we are going to discuss Mind Body Identity Theory. We have already discussed behaviorism in this context. Today's discussion will focus on particularly Armstrong's thesis on mind body identity theory and Utis press famous hypothesis that is consciousness abrain process. వాకకాచెవాస్వారంచిన౅లిరంతికికారమిం ఇందిసత౿లి మికగ్గొాసికికాంది అపందైదెదాదా. . . . . . . . other mental states or what they call mental states. Now mental events are different from psychological or brain events. If they are different from brain events, then the question is are they causally related to brain events meaning thereby this relationship is it logical relationship or a mure causal relationship, when I say  oluş                                                                                                                                                                                                                              . . . So, looking at these questions about identity. carved . We would be referring to Armstrong himself thesis on identity that is central state identity theory advocated by Armstrong tax about two main important points. One is the physical-chemical mechanism Ape the concept of mind. So, Armstrong considers that mind is nothing but a physical chemical mechanism, but he does not totally rule out the concept of mind. What he does is this that he attributes some kind of quality or properties to the mind, to this entire function the physical chemical functions that are happening in the brain or entire nervous systems taken into account.ChefSo TeamWeldingessTolong, I ushe interesting point an amshtong .si secentral l enstal reaches Identity theory . But look create this quotation from Armstrong . Armstrong now this book, a materialist history of mind 죽a publish ed in 1968. By impression, it goes like this, this is to evento dentI honestate with physical chemical states of ə transformation ə already ə том  Scriptures ə happens ə n ə ə ə ə ə n ə ə n ə ni ə n ə ə ə ə ə ə ə ə . . But eka  mandates some where moi  lacks . . වතට කර් වනි වන්ට  යෙර෡ු මිහි වන්මේ කර, takiego�ි හාවෙත Gmail, දමලදයක්ක්ල්? තවට එයබ සිතට එයක්ර Watch the Quest αιìnò Austin is proposing, … ... that these in a states are causally related to the behavior and when they an strong and it is followers argue that this couryomallationship is possible, what is next, what is Potter's mind. now they describe the mental attributes to the behavior so mind as a ontological reality is not part of now Armstrong Jay아서 στο nHost and guests as onself-identity cute that anybody and strong is taking about now as I said the causal relationship between the brain state havre the central nervous system and the behavior is a הא content relationship because it is not a logical relationship when I say we and q are logically related the p is presupposed and so the p is the necessary and sufficient condition for q so that kind of and the absence of q would talk about the absence of p as well so this kind of identity what I call the logical identity thesis is not strongly you know advocated by the armstrong as well as by place now what they talk about is a kind of a contingent identifications so what they talk about it is a kind of a contingent identity now what is a contingent identity since armstrong is talking about a scientific hypothesis he is proposing a scientific hypothesis then all scientific hypothesis are falsifiable they are not eternally true so we have seen in the case of Decart and you know that the transcendental theory of mind they advocate that mind is eternally true entity if mind is or the mental is eternally true it eternally exist so that kind of hypothesis is been rejected by armstrong for armstrong it is a kind of a contingent identity that the brain and the mind are contingently related it is we can say that say x is a brain state and x can cause y now this identity is based on some kind of evidence now we have an evidence for x causing y now it this relationship will be you know may not hold true when we talk about say y is caused by k so if we have a hypothesis here that pain is caused by the c fiber so whenever c fiber is stimulated we understand that no there is pain so c fiber simulation is causally related to the experience of pain but it may happen that after few years the neurologist will come out with some kind of a theory of mind that the brain is caused by other evidences no the cause of pain is not only due to the c fiber maybe it is due to something else let us say no defiber is causing pain so this kind of revision is entirely possible and scientific analysis of the notion of mind will hold on to this whatever armstrong or place will be talking about identity theory it is a causal identity theory but not a logical identity theory meaning thereby the causal identity theory will hold on to the contingent identity that the inner states are physical chemical states of the brain and this physical chemical states are contingently related with the brain the question that arises here is this is mind then an epiphenomenon because what is the status of mind because when I say that the mental is caused by brain processor look at the whole scenario here if we say that mental is caused by the brain processors now what is ontologically real is the brain processes so the brain becomes the primary condition of causing the mind so now the question is is mind an epiphenomenon armstrong will not assert on this proposition and say yes mind is an epiphenomenon whether he does not deny entirely the notion of mind what he asserts on this that the scientific understanding of mind is based on certain observable facts now since there are observable evidences so that certain mental phenomenon are caused by brain processes so this observable facts there is a kind of a function there is some kind of a processes found in the neurological system of human organism and that may be causing you know the mental states or behavior so therefore observable facts are to be taken into account and what is to be taken into account is that there is a kind of a stimulus response theory whenever we encounter certain facts we respond to those facts in a particular way so that kind of a causal mechanism they will be talking about so what is armstrong's thesis is this the certain physical stimuli illicit certain behavior so this is kind of a causal chain illiciting is a kind of a causal mechanism that you know would show how brain processes are cause of our behavior so that is a kind of a thesis which armstrong would propose armstrong would not deny entirely that there is nothing called mind so for him saying that mind is an epiphenomenon probably not correct so that will be you know my suggestions because he talks about an attributed theory of mind mind is attributed to this whole processes saying that experience imagination etcetera are mental phenomena and they are attributed to now the brain processes now let us go further and see armstrong's argument now the central state materialism or central state identity theory holds that when we experience mental states or thinking something what we are aware of are mure physical states of the brain but we are not certainly aware of mental states as brain states so there is a mechanism which is going on and we are not aware of this mechanism what we are aware of the facts that we are thinking something let us say I am thinking about my lectures I am conscious of what I am saying or I am conscious of you know my students looking at me and listening to these lectures so these conscious experiences or awareness is what I am directly concerned with what I can directly you know conscious of but what is important here is to examine the thesis that there is something going on behind all this experience of mind all this awareness of mind and that is what armstrong calls an inner process inner for him does not mean that this inner is a mental process inner here means a kind of a brain processes which are not observable directly which are not experienced directly which are not known directly so in that sense the concept of inner has to be revised within this framework of the central state materialism so materialism will hold on to the ontological thesis of a matter for him the mind is not ontologically you know prior to the mentor probably the mind is caused by the matter so that kind of thesis has to be considered when we talk about identity theory in a typical case of identity theory of x kind of behaviour y is the cause so that kind of identity at a micro level is possible so now then the question arises when he talks about inner processes this inner processes are unconscious processes we are not conscious of this fact that unconscious mental states are real because when I say I am experiencing all of you sitting there before me and listening to my lectures now this idea of consciousness is so self evident in the case of Descartes or so self evidently available to us is not considered you know something very significant in the case of Armstrong Armstrong says this brain processes which are inner reality to all our behaviours to all our you know actions is something unconscious they are not conscious behaviours so probably Armstrong's thesis is this that the unconscious mental states correspond to the neurological structure of the brain this idea one has to look at because neurological processes in the brain are entirely unconscious so and that would give to you know some kind of a synthesis I would say that Armstrong is trying to bring out when he talks about an attributive theory of mind and psychophysical mechanism that are going on behind the whole process of the mental what we call the mental or the the voluntary behaviour so Armstrong is not rejecting entirely the mind Armstrong in fact gives a kind of a weak thesis of identity I would say when I would compare him with a uti place thesis on identity so in that context Armstrong is drawing a synthesis between the existence of the mind and the existence of the brain processes and how these two are related in a in the hypothesis called the central state identity theory now let us go to look at what is uti place measure condition now uti place as we all know is advocating in a hypothesis consciousness is a brain process now this hypothesis is one of the measure you know back through in the discourse of philosophy of mind uti place famous hypothesis published in the British journal of psychology 1956 and please hold on to you know his hypothesis and writes another paper published in australian journal of philosophy in 1988 and this article corresponds to the previous one says 30 years on his consciousness till a brain process the the previous article is titled as his consciousness a brain process so after 30 years unfortunately uti place passed away in 2004 uti place paper is consciousness a brain process is a measure back through in the discourse of philosophy of mind because the scientific understanding of mind is based on the simple hypothesis the simple hypothesis and uti place is trying to locate what kind of identity theory philosophers are holding is it just a logical identity theory does the logical identity theory we suppose certain scientific facts I mean does it have any connection with the scientific facts so that is place measure concern I would I would say so look at the main concern of place I have tried to capture it in this quotation he says the question I wish to raise is whether in making this assumption as he assuming that brain processes cause consciousness let us assume that that is true and then he says we are inevitably committed to the dualistic position the moment you say that the brain is causing the mind or consciousness then you are committed to a dualistic notion of mind or a dualistic theory of mind now this dualistic position in which sensation and mental images from a separate category of processes over and above the physical and the physiological processes with which they are known to be correlated so what is important is that that the moment you talk about x is causing y and y here is a mental phenomenon and caused by x which is a brain process then you are already caught in the circle of dualism the kind of dualism probably Descartes initiating and we all know that Descartes is committing a kind of a mistake what rile calls a category mistakes so so this assumption that x causing y mind is caused by brain processes and putting them in two separate category say x and y is a problematic theses so we need to look at this theses more closely whether this theses is based on certain observable facts or it is a kind of a mere logical assumption that is what is place main concern that over and above this process the physical and the physiological processes with which they are known to be correlated so we need to correlate the mental with the physical and and what kind of correlation is talking about now that will be very clear when we look at the nature of the hypothesis the nature of the hypothesis says consciousness is a process in the brain in my view is neither self contradictory nor self evident so it is not self evident as Descartes is proposing therefore he says it is a reasonable scientific hypothesis meaning thereby a reasonable scientific hypothesis may be falsifiable based on certain new evidences that if a new evidence show us that the mental is not caused by brain processes then it is fine probably that will revise know the kind of hypothesis that place and other neuroscientist or other materialistic theories of mind are talking about that will certainly revise their hypothesis but so for its place theses is concerned when what place is feeding for is this that we need to find out the correlation and that is very important challenge for all of us and the neuroscientist progressing today based on this hypothesis or the based on this assumption that there are certain sectors in the brain there are certain places in the brain which are causing mental phenomena so that is something we need to talk about say one can say hypothalamus is the the central part of the brain which is causing consciousness that is the recent thesis probably surd would talk about and in fact surd's biological naturalism holds on to this hope that you know a consciousness can be explained by brain processes we would definitely look at now surd's theory of consciousness little later in our class but what is important here is this that this hypothesis in a way is based on certain scientific analogy analogy are certainly important to talk about scientific proof analogies are you know drawn here with a reference to the brain is a motion of electric charges like brain or consciousness is caused by brain processes now this kind of hypothesis is analogous to the hypothesis that lightning is nothing but a motion of electric charges so that is a kind of hypothesis according to uti place now what are the main arguments places having now the main arguments are mind brain identity is not a logical identity but an empirical theory or a empirical identity based on the scientific evidence number two brain processes cannot be dismissed on logical grounds to say that I am aware of my experiences my dreams imaginations etcetera are self evidently true and this self evidence is something very personal and private to my consciousness is ruled out so we cannot just say they are logical whether we have to prove that they hold a kind of an identity with reference to the scientific evidence so that is the hypothesis mainly talking about so inner process therefore does not entail dualism so whenever the identity theory talks about the notion of inner they do not really talk about the way the catechians talk about the notion of inner probably the concept of inner is to be you know little modified here and understood inner means that which is not directly observable in that sense inner has to be taken I mean as I have already talked about it now we need to reflect that how place go about this hypothesis now you get the definition of place places the notion of is here is something very important now is here is a is in the sense of definition or in the sense of composition so there are two sense in which we can talk about the notion of is that say consciousness is brain processes now in what sense this is is being used that is what we need to look at is it used in the the definition sense or is you know something which composes its predicate say for example if I say red is color that is the example he say gives red is a color here color is a predicate predicate that defines the subject whenever we say that red is a color but nothing else if I say red is a color but nothing else probably this I would take in a definitional sense because that color which is a predicate here necessarily defines the subject red so in that sense it will be a kind of a definitional notion of predicate because I am saying red is a color but nothing else if I say this then and go back to the hypothesis that is consciousness is a brain process this is the hypothesis that place is drawing here if I go to that hypothesis then I find place is using it in the sense now then what is been drawn here just say that they are necessarily identical these two say are necessarily identical C and B are necessarily identical or they are contingently identical because necessary identity will talk about reduction that brain is necessarily related with consciousness or in other way will talk about reductionism place is aware of this but in place theoretical framework there is no reductionism though place talks about identity therefore he says the statements about sensation and mental images are reducible or analyzable in the statements about brain processes certainly there are people who talk about this kind of thesis but place identity thesis does not talk about this kind of reductionism rather about definition he says the identity between the statement of consciousness and the statement of brain processes is manifestly false it is manifestly false because it has not achieved what it was supposed to achieve and therefore it is manifestly false now what it is supposed to gain what place hypothesis is intending to prove here is our major concern now the main concern here is this that is should be used in a definitional sense and is also is used in a compositional sense now as I mentioned about the statement red is a color is a definitional sense here red is a color color is redicate and he says that a square is a equilateral rectangle is another kind of a definition a square is a equilateral rectangle this is a kind of a definition he is trying to now pose in a compositional sense what kind of composition that he is talking about in a compositional sense he says that her hat is bundle of straw tied together with string her hat is a bundle of straw tied together with string now this here is is used in the sense of compositions in the sense of composition now his table is not an old pecking case is also used in the sense of composition so now look at this analysis of the nature of is say for example if x is p and nothing else is used in the sense of prediction say for example if I say water is a h2o whether I am trying to use this term is in the sense of a prediction or in the sense of a composition there are two ways in which a now we can use the term is so another is if I say p is q main is rational or man is say biped there are two ways in which you know is can be used so in the sense of composition and the sense of a prediction the necessary statement when I say man is rational or water is h2o then is is used in the sense of a identity that is water is necessarily h2o that is water is necessarily h2o having and the properties like two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen so that necessarily defines what water is all about so place argues that giving this statement square is an equilateral rectangle and see compares with another statement it should be a table is an old pecking case now in the later case you find the second statement here is about you know giving the sense of a composition where is the first one gives as the impression of identity if p and q water and h2o are the subject and predicate both are necessarily related that is one thing the necessary relation suggest that wherever there is q p is present and whenever q is absent p is also absent so in in that sense the concept of necessity is to be defined so a place argues that definition it is used in the sense of a necessary conditions the kind of prediction which is been used to talk about water or talk about consciousness shows that the necessary statement talks about some kind of a identity between the subject and the predicate so in this case it is a hypothesis that consciousness is brain process so it is not a contingent statement whether it is a a necessary statement because had it been a contingent statement it would have been false if somebody else says no consciousness is not caused by brain processes it is caused by some other function of the organism so consciousness if somebody argues that then this could be treated as a contingent statement not a necessary statement so then we need to really define look at in what sense place is talking about this identity or defining the necessity place argues and her argument is as follows that there is a relationship between the meaning of the expression forming the grammatical predicate and the meaning of the term forming the grammatical subject such that whenever the subject term is applicable the predicate must also be applicable so as I mentioned earlier that whenever I talk about the presence of q or I also suggest that you know corresponding to this predicate we have also the presence of the subject so in that sense we are talking about some kind of a grammatical subject and grammatical predicate so the subject predicate relationship or when we say that consciousness is brain process so this is what according to this is a kind of a grammatical predicate ascribe to the subject term say consciousness and whenever we talk about the necessary relationship we say that the grammatical subject is available along with the grammatical predicate or whenever we talk about the grammatical predicate then the grammatical subject is presupposed so in that sense the kind of meaning they generate is nothing but a kind of a necessary relationship between the subject term and the predicate term so what we can conclude from this thesis is this that the meaning of this expressions must not be logically unconnected when you say that consciousness and brain processes that is what place will not accept in fact they are logically connected with each other so place tries to draw our attention to this fact that this hypothesis that consciousness is a brain processes projects or proves this fact that we cannot sideline the notion of a brain processes rather consciousness will always know there with reference to the brain processes that kind of connection is a logical connection and according to place they are not logically unconnected events they are not logically unconnected because they talk about you know ontological dependency place in her thesis suggest that consciousness is ontologically dependent on brain processes so there are not two different ontologies whether the notion of consciousness is ascribed to the brain processes so therefore it is very important to talk about whether place hypothesis talks about any kind of a logical independency or place hypothesis talks about ontological dependency now this is the major question which you know follows from the debate whether consciousness is caused by brain processes the place writes a quote if we lived in the world in which all tables without exception were pecking cases then the concept of table and pecking cases in our language would not have their present logically independent status so place gives a kind of a linguistic analysis of this case when he talks about the subject term and predicate term relationship the linguistic analysis shows that how a term is defined within the framework of a language or language use is it the case that when we define the concept of table stating that her table is a pecking case is the pecking case always used as a predicate to define the subject table that is the question which place is referring to how a particular term is used and what kind of meaning it generates when it is being used so that is now place when condition because as we know place is arguing this thesis you know particularly Wittgenstein and many others in philosophy of language are talking about a used theory of meaning the use theory of meaning suggest that language has a meaning or the meaning of a particular term could be understood with reference to its use in a particular context so what is important for the later Wittgenstein is this that language use goes along with form of life people who have read Wittgenstein must be aware of this fact that whenever Wittgenstein talks about a language use or what he calls language game then the language game is it is associated with forms of life so language game and forms of life are logically connected so when place argues that when we talk about table and table can be defined as a kind of a making case then is it the case that when we talk about making case we talk about table or when we talk about table it can necessarily suppose that we will be talking about the making case so that kind of logical relationship place is trying to draw and it is argued in the background of the use theory of meaning so taking language into the entire language can be analyzed let us look at the notion of identity from the point of view of observational facts so you have observational facts like when you talk about table we talk about making case similarly in a scientific framework when we talk about say water is S 2 O then we certainly look for an observational fact whether in every case that we talk about water there we find two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen is it the case so a scientific case is to be proved with reference to observations what are the observational conditions which can say or which can suggest to ask that there is a kind of a logical dependency between brain processes and consciousness place gives an example and look at this quotation of place a cloud is large semi transparent mass with a phase structure suspended in the atmosphere whose shape is subject to continual and kilo thus peak change whenever we imagine notion of cloud or notion of cloud then we define cloud with reference to certain observational facts that it is a kind of a phase structure suspended in the atmosphere whose space is subject to continuous kilo thus peak change so that is what a place talks about an observational facts with reference to cloud but observation of what it says then it says what do we observe we observe mass of tiny particles water droplets and continuous motions so these are the things we find now available when we talk about observations so being cloud must correspond to these observational facts if it is not corresponding to the observational facts then probably we will suggest that this is not cloud or this is something else this is fog or fog so there are so many interpretation one can draw so observational relationship is important when we talk about logical dependency or logical independency if you say that water is constituted of S 2 O then we must have observational facts corresponding to these statements if we say that this is about the pecking case then that kind of use must be there in our language so our use of particular term table must correspond to the pecking case so this is also one kind of an observational facts like we talk about the clouds we explain the notion of cloud so in that sense so this observational relationship has to be invariably associated with each other now whenever we talk about causal relationship that water S 2 O consciousness brain processes or table and pecking case if whenever we talk about this kind of relationships what place called a logical relationship then this logical relationships are based on certain observational facts and as you know observational facts are talking about causal relationships when I say S 2 O causes water water is constituted of S 2 O then this is a kind of a causal relationship that you know place will be talking about because place wants to give a scientific understanding of consciousness so their scientific explanations not only depends on the observational facts but how this observational facts constitute another fact that is important here so in this regard we need to look at the causal relationship of the micro elements of the water or the causal relationship between consciousness or the neural structures in the brains and the psycho chemical processes which happens in the brain and how they you know cause consciousness or experiences sensations and after images so there is a long debate now this identity theorist are holding right from Armstrong as I mentioned Armstrong place to great extent jasis is smart who is also now trying to give an explanation of sensation with reference to brain processes so all this identity theorist are depending on the causal analysis or causal explanation of consciousness so in that sense they talk about a kind of a invariable associations between the two if X and Y say X and Y are invariably related whenever X is there Y is also there or whenever Y is there X is also there so that kind of a now causal relationship or invariable relationship or association is necessary to talk about a scientific explanation of the hypothesis two sets of observations that place is talking about the case of compositions where lightning is like the motion of electric charges or lightning determines the occurrence of electric charges so there are two things one can think of if I say H 2 O determines what water is and H 2 O composes water so in that sense look at the terminology X determines the existence of Y if I talk about X X determines the existence of Y so Y is in fact occurring out of the X therefore X becomes a determining factor of Y place is talking about a kind of a determining factor so and the kind of a invariable correlationship and gives an example of say moon and tide so whenever we talk about the raise of moon moon is raising and the level of tide is also raising so this kind of a labeling example is used to talk about correlations how they are causally correlated with each other and in the case of a scientific facts we need to talk about a technical observations a set of connections if we would like to determine then probably we will be using scientific apparatus to observe certain facts so that is that that kind of things you know places interested to bring in when we talk about the identity theory or to prove the hypothesis he says there is a physiological explanations how does we talk about observation or introspective observations talking about sensation talking about after images place would go in favor of her thesis that there is a kind of a mental dispositional factor and that is responsible for causing these after images or sensations along with smart and Armstrong so place example of proving the hypothesis will depend on the chain of events so that is very important the chain of events the occurrence of the chain of events along with when we have a particular sensation in the mind that I am now place gives this example so whenever we have a sensation we must see what kind of events are occurring in the brain that will explain the sensation mental sensation place is drawing this from serrington's nature of events in the mind interrogative action of nervous system where he talks about two types of events one is the physical chemical events another is the psychical events so Davidson in one of his papers talks about mental events so I am sure you will take interest in reading Davidson's thesis of mental events how there is a reference to certain physical events in the body so Davidson to some extent does not eliminate the physical events the psychophysical events or the dispositional capacities and its causal relationship with the behavior Davidson does not rule out that what place is trying to show here drawing a thesis from serrington that there are two physical events the physical chemical events and another is the psychical events but then place is also apprehensive of a kind of a mistake whether we are talking about what he called phonological philosophy the logical mistake that place is apprehensive of one is this that is the mistake of supposing that when a subject describes his experience when he describes the physical field to him he is describing the literal properties of the objects and events on the particular sort of internal cinema or a television screen usually referred to to the modern psychological literature as phonological field so now as I have mentioned earlier that Descartes is giving a representational point is is a kind of a inner chamber where everything that is given to the mind is represented in a particular way so that kind of thesis Descartes is talking about and whenever one is giving a description of things that he is or she is experiencing now these descriptions are nothing but how things are represented in my mind so is there a mind that represents things so place is trying to attack the kind of representational thesis which Descartes is arguing the Cartesian mind which represents things is not necessarily a kind of a ontologically real but what is ontologically real is the brain mechanism the psychophysical mechanism of the brain and that gives us representations so our description of our experiences are due to the brain processes that is there going on in our brain so place will not talk about the kind of representational thesis which is argued by Descartes and some of the powers of Descartes let us summarize place thesis in this way that place along with Armstrong and smart those identity discusses smart here but I am sure those who are reading the identity theories they would also like to read Jesus is smart paper smart says sensation and brain processes that is one of smart paper there also talks about how brain processes is an important factor giving or exhibiting the behavior so place tries to prove the scientific hypothesis which is a kind of a major established thesis so far and this hypothesis I think is still a kind of a correct hypothesis when place revisits it after 30 years and writes another paper 30 years on consciousness is a brain process so that shows how place hypothesis is still working if somebody wants to read identity theory one cannot eliminate place hypothesis one has to study place hypothesis very seriously in order to talk about functionalism in order to talk about the neuroscientific or the philosophical understanding of neuroscience or consciousness with this I will conclude the identity theory thank you