From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb  5 11:56:06 EST 1992
Article 3387 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and Panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Feb2.000933.29482@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: panpsychism
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <21879@life.ai.mit.edu> <1992Jan31.190338.25107@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb1.224845.10781@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1992 00:09:33 GMT

In article <1992Feb1.224845.10781@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Jan31.190338.25107@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>>But the whole notion of *mental* states (as opposed to physical or
>>functional states) *presumes* some sort of phenomenal component that
>>might just as well be call consciousness as anything else.
>
>Well, no; e.g. Freudian unconscious beliefs are still mental states.
>One has to distinguish between two very different conceptions of
>the mental.  The first is what I call the *psychological* conception,
>where the mind is identified as the entity that's responsible for
>the production of behaviour, and mental states are individuated by
>their causal/explanatory role.  The second is the *phenomenal*
>conception, where the mind is identified as the sum total of our
>subjective experiences, and mental states are individuated by the
>way they feel.

What makes a state "mental"?  If my blood sugar goes up, I get sleepy.  The
change in blood sugar is a change in state which causes a behavioural change.
Why isn't it a "mental" state?   If the mind is the entity that's responsible
for producing behaviour, then why isn't *any* change in state that
produces behaviour a change in "mental" state?  My naive answer to this
is that it is because mental states have a special quality, namely their
phenomenal, or at least (in the case of unconscious states, at least
*potentially* phenomenal) component.  Otherwise, it hard for me to see how
we can distinguish between mental states and other kinds of causes of behaviour.

>It seems to me that many of our mental state terms, particularly
>cognitive states like belief, desire, etc, are best conceived of as
>psychological states with no essential phenomenal component -- e.g.
>a belief may be conscious, but even it were unconscious, it's still
>a belief. 

But certainly it is only a belief if it *in principle* could be conscious.
The notion of "believing" things that we can't *in principle* know we
believe seems ludicrous.  This is not to say that there can't be unconscious
beliefs, but only that *any* such belief must, under other circumstances,
have a conscious component.  This requirement makes belief dependent upon
phenomenal experience, even if any particular belief is not conscious.
(After all, if *all* beliefs were unconscious, would we think the term
referred to mental states any more than reflex actions do?)

- michael




