1. What is meant by the term property dualism? (3 marks)
Property dualism is the view that whilst there is only one type of substance in the world (matter) there are two types of property (mental and physical) both depending on the physical substance to exist.
Mental properties are a special kind of property, emergent from physical matter and irreducible to physical terms.

2. Chalmers Easy Vs Hard: Easy Problem of consciousness:
How does the brain integrate, categorize and distribute information?
How does it respond to environmental stimuli?
How does it focus attention?
These things are known as the easy problem of consciousness as they can be functionally defined.
That is to say, if we can find the function of the brain that performs these tasks, we have solved the issue.
All of these questions are about identifying or specifying mechanisms that perform certain tasks.
We’ve not done it yet, but presumably we will do with enough study.
Hard Problem of consciousness:
The problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience.
Experience does not seem to be functionally definable – if we find the mechanisms that perform these functions we would still not know certain key questions:
Why is their performance accompanied by experience?
Why one kind of experience and not another?
Presumably no amount of brain study or biological understanding would help us answer these questions.

3. Property Dualism
Special set of properties that depend on the physical substance for their existence.
No other physical substance has these properties.
Remember: Consciousness is a real thing – a real non-physical phenomenon, but it cannot exist without the brain to produce it.

4. Emergent / Non-Reductive Properties
As the brain evolves, it has become more and more complex. Once it has reached a certain level of complexity, mental states emerge.
Mental properties can therefore be said to be emergent – they appear once physical matter has managed to organise itself into a sufficiently complex system.
It is important to note that the property dualist considers mental properties to be special in that they cannot be reduced to physical properties.
This essentially means that (unlike physicalists who believe that all mental states can be explained using the physical) property dualists believe that mental properties cannot be explained simply using physical sciences.

5. Property Dualism - Summary
Fill out as much of the sheet as you can. Ensure your arguments and criticisms are as clear as possible. Use your notes and the textbooks to help you remember key information.
In the case of the two main arguments – ensure you are clear on the form of the argument (how it works) and what it is actually attacking.
In the case of the responses, ensure you are clear on why they are responses.
If you are not sure you have something correct, note it down briefly on the whiteboards and get me to check it first.

6. Philosophical Zombies
Physicalism claims that consciousness is ultimately physical in nature.
It follows that any world which is physically identical to this one must contain consciousness.
But we can conceive of a world which is physically identical to this one, but in which there is no conscious experience – the world of the philosophical zombies.
Therefore physicalism is false.

7. A world of P-Zombies is not truly conceivable.
Response 1:
A world of P-Zombies is not truly conceivable.
But just try to keep hold of this idea in the midst of your ordinary intercourse with others. Say to yourself, for example: “The children over there are mere automata; all their liveliness is merely automatism.” And you will either find these words becoming quite meaningless; or you will produce in yourself some kind of uncanny feeling, or something of the sort. - Wittgenstein
According to Dan Dennett, whilst there are no explicit contradictions in the argument there are hidden ones.
We may fool ourselves into thinking we can strip consciousness away from a persons ability to act, but actually having a mind is integral to performing such tasks. We need a mind to function in day to day life.
Essentially this means that when we truly consider it a world of P- Zombies is not conceivable.
Some examples:
People responding in a conversation without qualia would mean they don’t understand their own words or yours.
People describing their sense of qualia without actually having it.
Imagining someone experiencing no pain after losing an arm or leg
Can a person really respond intelligibly without Qualia? Without understanding of what they’re saying?

8. What is conceivable is not possible.
Response 2:
What is conceivable is not possible.
Just because we can conceive of something, that doesn’t mean it is possible. This is because sometimes our conceptions are based on false beliefs.
Consider the example we used before of someone being able to conceive of a right- angled triangle that does not follow Pythagoras’ theorem. Whilst they may think they can conceive of it, it is not actually possible because they have made a fundamental error.
Similarly, we might be able to conceive of zombies not being conscious, but if physicalism is true (and we may yet discover that it is, maybe we are missing some crucial information) then zombies would have to be conscious, we would be mistaken.
Response:
But if this were true then we would not have an issue with qualia – we would simply be able to study the physical makeup of the creature and be able to deduce it’s mental states.
If mental states are simply physical states then we should be able to access them just by observing the physical (Jacksons Knowledge Argument).

9. Possibility tells us nothing about reality:
Response 3:
Possibility tells us nothing about reality:
Just because zombies exist in another world, does not mean they exist in this one. Perhaps we are in one world where mental / conscious states are physical and in the rest they are not.
Physical
Mental
Absent
Response: But this means that the mental is something extra and is extraneous to our needs. If in our world the mind is purely physical then why does it need a mysterious non-physical element for P-Zombies to have consciousness in their world? Surely this is just extra, unneeded stuff?
Our World
Physicalist World
Possible 1
Dualist world
Possible 2
P-Zombie World

10. Ensure you have the three responses written clearly.
Property Dualism
Criticisms
P-Zombies are not conceivable.
What is conceivable is not always possible.
What is possible tells us nothing about reality.

11. Does she learn something new?
If so what?

12. The Knowledge Argument
Mary has all the physical information concerning human colour vision before her release.
But there is some information about human colour vision that she seems to gain on her release from the room.
Therefore not all information is physical information.
Physicalism is false.

13. Critique: Acquaintance Knowledge
One possible response is to say that Mary does not gain any new propositional knowledge about the colour red (that is, she knows no new facts about it) but she does gain acquaintance knowledge, she is now familiar with the colour and the experience of seeing it.
Mary may know all about this physical property of qualia, what it is, when it occurs and so on before she leaves the room.
However she is not acquainted with the property until she has this experience - when she sees red she gains new acquaintance knowledge, something that is still purely physical.

14. Critique: Ability Knowledge
A second response using a similar theme is to say that Mary gains ability knowledge – the ability to imagine and remember particular colours, to recognise colours in the environment and objects of similar colours etc. This is the argument of Nemirow (1980) and Lewis (1983, 1988).
They argue that knowing what “an experience is like” is simply to have certain practical abilities (mentioned above).
For example – knowing all the physical facts there is to know about bikes and the physics of riding does not give you the ability to ride a bike. But gaining the ability to ride is still a physical brain state and can be observed.

15. Response: Still New Propositional!
In both of these cases Jacksons response is to deny that Mary’s learning is confined merely to acquaintance or ability knowledge. Instead, he argues that she has also gained some type of propositional knowledge.
Yes, she may now become acquainted with colour, or gain the ability to identify and imagine particular colours – but she's also gained factual knowledge about what it is like for another human to see colour (remember she is not worried about her own experiences, but the experiences of others).
For example, she could now wonder whether other people have the same perception of red as she has – something she could not do before as she had not experienced red. This is a question of fact and is therefore propositional knowledge.

16. Critique: She Would Know!
Daniel Dennett and J. Christopher Maloney assert that if she already truly knew "everything about colour", that knowledge would necessarily include a deep understanding of why and how human neurology causes us to sense the "qualia" of colour. Moreover, that knowledge would include the ability to functionally differentiate between red and other colours. Mary would therefore already know exactly what to expect of seeing red, before ever leaving the room. “She would certainly be able to imagine what such a state would be like.”

17. Response: Jackson’s Change of Mind
Later on in his career Jackson changed his mind about the thought experiment and came to accept that “all physical knowledge would include knowledge of qualia”. He argues that maybe Mary would first think she had learned something new (as do we) but actually we simply have a very confused idea of what it means to have all the physical information about a particular experience. Qualia may in fact represent complex internal states, so that if Mary genuinely knew everything about such states she would be able to work out what colours would look like before she saw them. NOTE: This is not to accept that this amount of knowledge will ever actually be possible, but this is a flaw of neuroscience and our understanding rather than the information. It remains IF Mary knew all the physical information, she wouldn’t learn anything new when first seeing red.

18. Critique: Different Kind of Info
There is water in the glass.
There is H20 in the glass.
One could argue that these are both the same ‘fact’ as they relate to particular set of circumstances in the world.
Similarly Mary’s knowledge of what happens in the brain when encountering red and her experience of seeing red could both be said to be the same ‘fact’ (as they relate to the same events in the world) she’s just encountering it from a different perspective. 1st rather than 3rd.
3rd
1st

19. Critique: Qualia Don’t Exist!
A final criticism is to argue that Qualia (as we understand them) don’t exist at all, and therefore Mary learns nothing new on her leaving the room.
Philosophers supporting this view Patricia and Paul Churchland look to an idea known as eliminativism, as they believe that terms such as qualia (along with belief, desire, emotion etc.) should be eliminated from a proper understanding of human mentality as they are unclear.
Instead as our understanding of neuroscience grows we should refer to these specific mental states by their, more specific, neuro-scientific terms.
Daniel Dennett also puts forward an argument supporting this view – intended to show that Qualia as defined don’t make logical sense, they are more confusing than we actually think and therefore it is better to do away with them entirely.
He does this by breaking down each of the properties usually associated with them and examining whether they are truly coherent using thought experiments.

20. Critique: Qualia Don’t Exist!
A final criticism is to argue that Qualia (as we understand them) don’t exist at all, and therefore Mary learns nothing new on her leaving the room.
Reactive Disassociation:
The Taste of Beer:

21. Property Dualism - Summary
Fill out as much of the sheet as you can. Ensure your arguments and criticisms are as clear as possible. Use your notes and the textbooks to help you remember key information.
In the case of the two main arguments – ensure you are clear on the form of the argument (how it works) and what it is actually attacking.
In the case of the responses, ensure you are clear on why they are responses.
If you are not sure you have something correct, note it down briefly on the whiteboards and get me to check it first.

22. Homework
Read through the passage on the sheet. Identify: What problem Elisabeth has with the theory of Substance Dualism as put forward by Descartes. Why she suggests it is a problem (what reasoning she gives for her issue). Extension: Research and identify the answer that Descartes gives to this problem.