The Regress Argument Against the Language of Thought Hypothesis

This objection has plagued the Language of Thought hypothesis (aka LOTH) since it's very conception. In fact Jerry Fodor included a reply to such objections in his 1975 book the Language of Thought, however these objections have refused to go away. It dubious whether such objections to the Language of Thought hypothesis do in fact under the hypothesis. 

Many of the supporters of LOTH often appeal to the idea of a language of thought to explain a number of things about our natural languages. For example the language of thought has been appealed to in order to explain the following: 

• How natural languages (i.e French, English, Russian etc.) are learned 
• How our natural languages are to be understood 
• And finally how utterances in a natural language can be meaningful 

There are couple of instances in Fodor (1975) which empathize the points above. For example Fodor claims that natural languages are learned through a process of forming and confirming hypothesis regarding the translation of sentences in natural language into mentalese sentences. The LOTH gives us a representational medium in which the representation of the truth conditions of natural language sentences can occur. The Language of Thought theorist further posits that our natural languages are understood because such understanding consists in the translation of our standard natural language sentences into sentences in mentalese. Again sentences in our standard natural language are taken to meaningful in virtue of the meanings of the corresponding mentalese sentences.  

Simon Blackburn (1984) has claimed that either explanations of this kind lead to an regress as we ought to have to give an explanation of how a language of thought is learned, or that they are simply gratuitous because if it is possible to give a successful explanation which doesn't lead to regress, we ought to have given such an explanation for our natural languages without positing a language of thought at all. 

Fodor's response to such objections can be found in Fodor (1975) and goes roughly as follows:

• The Language of Thought is innate it is not learned.
• The Language of Thought is understood in a different sense to how we understand our natural language comprehension. 
• That sentences in a language of thought are not meaningful in virtue of another meaningful language but rather in a completely different way. 

While Fodor's replies to the regress argument aren't totally plausible and may not convince everyone. But Laurence and Margolis (1997) have pointed out that the regress argument against LOTH (at least in the form that Blackburn presents it) relies on the assumption that the language of thought is only posited to explain certain facts about natural language acquisition and natural language comprehension. If it can be shown that there is other empirical phenomena for which the LOTH provides a good explanation then the hypothesis is not gratuitous in the way Blackburn suggests. In fact there does seem to be a good deal empirical evidence that can be best explained by positing a LOT (consider both the systematicity and productivity argument). 

Dennett's Objection to the Language of Thought Hypothesis

The well known philosopher Daniel Dennett formulated one of the first serious objections to the language of thought hypothesis (LOTH) in his review to Jerry Fodor's (1975) foundational book on the subject. Dennett's objection is essentially that it is possible for their to be propositional attitudes without explicit representation. To make his point Dennett introduces an example:

In a recent conversation with the designer of a chess-playing program I heard the following criticism of a rival program: “it thinks it should get its queen out early.” This ascribes a propositional attitude to the program in a very useful and predictive way, for as the designer went on to say, one can usefully count on chasing that queen around the board. But for all the many levels of explicit representation to be found in that program, nowhere is anything roughly synonymous with “I should get my queen out early” explicitly tokened. The level of analysis to which the designer's remark belongs describes features of the program that are, in an entirely innocent way, emergent properties of the computational processes that have “engineering reality.” I see no reason to believe that the relation between belief-talk and psychological talk will be any more direct. (Dennett 1981: 107) 

The rival but critical chess programmer assigns a propositional attitude to the rival program; namely that the rival program thinks it should move its queen out into play early in the game. Such an ascription of a propositional attitude is both useful and predictive. For example when we wish to program our chess computer to play the rival program we may consider the fact that the other program thinks it should get its queen early and respond by making sure we have an adequate defense for such an event. But if we understand how chess programs operate we know that there is no internal representation within the code of a chess computer which represents the propositional attitude that the program 'should get its queen out early'. Dennett sees no reason why the relation between our standard everyday belief talk and talk of psychological processes will be anymore direct than in the chess program/computer example. 

The chess program doesn't have  a dispositional or potential, belief regarding the early movement of its queen. Rather it operates with the belief that it ought to get its queen out early in the game.There appears to be lots of everyday examples where we reason using certain rules of inference without directly or explicitly representing this rules of inference.  

This objection from Dennett hasn't been particularly well received and it is widely regarded that Language of Thought theorists can provide a more than an adequate reply to such objections. The standard reply involves distinguishing between the rules regarding the way Mentalese data structures are manipulated and the data structures themselves. The Language of Thought hypothesis is not committed to every rule being explicitly represented. It is a nomological fact that in a computational device can be explicitly represented some have to be hard wired into the system. It is in this way that language of thought theorists do not have to contend that rules will be explicitly represented, it is data structures that have to be explicitly represented. With these data structures being manipulated formally by rules, causal manipulation is not itself possible without explicit tokening of these representations. It is possible to account for dispositional propositional attitudes in terms of an appropriate principle of inferential closure of explicitly represented propositional attitudes. 

A chess program involves at least some certain explicit representations (for example chess board, pieces and some of the rules). Which of the rules of the program are explicit and which are implicit is an empirical matter of fact. What Dennett's objection essentially does it point to the fact that some rules may be emergent out of the implementation of explicit rules and data structures. This does not undermine the language of thought hypothesis, as it possible to account for these emergent rules in terms of data structures and explicit representations. 

References 
Dennett D (1981), Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1981

Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind V: Identity Theories of Mind

With the Behaviourist project having collapsed under the weight of various objections, materialism was faced with the challenge of producing a theory which could account for both mental-physical and physical-mental causation. Identity theory was given its first modern formulation by a number of prominent philosophers in the 1950's. The most notable of proponents of identity theory were U.T Place, J.J.C Smart and David Armstrong, all of whom wrote reasonably accessible papers on the subject which can be found in a number of anthologies. 

All of these early proponents of identity theory advanced what is now known as a type identity theory. This theses stated that minds are equivalent to brains, for every type of mental event there must be a corresponding type of brain event. Just associating mental states with brain states simply isn't enough; they are in fact type identical. Every single mental state is equivalent to a physical event, namely a particular brain event (Identity theorists might extend the brain to include the Central Nervous System). Part of the reason why this reductionism was so attractive is that great progress had been made in other physical sciences. An example of a successful reduction would be reducing the complicated concept of heat to mean molecular motion. If the same could be done for mental states it would justify the feeling among the scientific community that mental states are in fact brain states. 


An example of such a reduction often proposed by the original type identity theorists is that of C-fibers firing being type identical to pain. Though we now know that this is bad neuro biology and in fact different types of pain involve the firing of different fibers. The statement that the firing of C-fibers is type identical with pain, is a form of reductive physicalism and claims that the realm of the mental is nothing more than the physical and that the mental can be totally reduced to the physical. You can see that in a way this is more radical than Logical Behaviourism, which can be put forward simply as a claim about the meaning of mental terms.  


Those who adopted the identity thesis were unable to put forward any empirical arguments for it. This was due to the fact that the most that can be empirically established is a correlation between mental states and brain states. It is perfectly possible that empirical science could refute the correlation as it did with C-fibers being identical with pain. Rather the identity theorist offers philosophical arguments in favor of identity theory. Here we are going to run through a number of arguments offered up as a reason to adopt an identity theory of mind.  

1. The Argument from Explanation: Favored by J.J.C Smart, he contends that we should adopt identity theory by appealing to Ockham's Razor. It possible for us to explain everything in terms of the physical without having to appeal to special mental entities which lie outside the physical realm. 
2. The Argument from Causation: Noting that certain physical events are caused by mental events and appealing to the causal closure of physics, we are supposed to conclude that all mental events are equivalent with physical events. 

But there are a number of problems facing the type identity theories of mind. So have contended that type identity theories are chauvinistic. This is due to the fact that they deny the possibility of multiple realizability. For example say we accept that the firing of C-fibers is equivalent to pain, we seem to be denying the possibility of animals such as dogs having pain. This is due to the fact that other animals do not have the same neuro biology as us and pain may be realized in different ways in different species. This means the firing of c-fibers is not necessary for pain. It seems that this problem can be avoided by introducing an element of species relativity to the theory, so instead of saying that pain is equivalent to C-fibers we say that pain in human is equivalent to C-fibers firing and pain in dogs is equivalent to the firing of D1 fibers. 

But a species relative type identity theory may still be to restrictive. For example it is possible that pain in me could be realized in a different way from how it is realized in you. There seems to be plenty of empirical evidence showing that different parts of the brain can take over functions typically associated with other parts of the brain in patients with brain damage. One example would be patients who experience the phenomena known as blindsight.  Another objection that can made against type identity theory, namely that it assumes the completeness of physics (the belief that physics will ultimately give us an explanation of all phenomena). Clearly our current physics doesn't give us a complete explanation of phenomena. Claiming that physics means the complete theory of everything given to us at the end day, is merely trivial  to claim that everything is physical. 

In response to the many of the objections made against type identity theories, many identity theorists adopted a weaker form of the doctrine. Token identity theories are weaker in the sense that a token identity theorist doesn't hold that a given mental state is identical with a particular brain state, but rather that mental states are identical with some kind of brain state. In its very weakest formulation a token identity theorist holds that every time that an individual is in some mental state the subject must also be in a some kind of physical state. But generally most token identity theorists want to make a stronger claim namely that every mental event is dependent on some kind of physical event. This an asymmetric relationship as the mental depends on the physical, but the physical is not dependent on the mental. This is normally described by saying that the mental supervenes on the physical. Though there are many problems relating to how we are meant to spell this out (See Horgan). 

A number of problems remain for the token identity theorist, including how fine grained should any of the proposed token identities be, how the theory will impact on generalizations which folk psychology relies (for example it could become apparent that there every pain is a unique one off). But the problem that really led to the demise of identity theory is Kripke's critique of materialism, which I will not go into here as to properly cover the subject matter would require a dedicated post.

Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind IV: Behaviourism

Before I start the fourth post of the Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind series, I want to admit the fact that I'm quite sympathetic to Behaviourism. 


The Behaviourist movement was influential in Philosophy during the 1930's, 40's and 50's with its influence beginning to wane significantly in the 1960's. The Behaviourist movement in Philosophy was motivated in part by answering concerns first raised in Descartes work. And in part by the need to for an account of the mental which would be compatible with materialism and the new scientific world view. While the motivation behind methodological Behaviourism was largely derived from the lack of progress made in the field of Psychology which at that time relied heavily on introspective methods. We have two very different and distinct ways of ascribing mental states and concepts, we can ascribe them on the basis of first person introspection or alternatively we can ascribe them to others on the based on their behaviour. Many philosophers have been deeply suspicious of the ascription of mental states by the means of first person introspection which seems to lead to accepting some kind of Cartesian project.


But according to Behaviourism, the talk of hidden mental events which cannot be observed is totally mistake.The Behaviourist holds that the behavior of an organism is completely exhausted by its observable response to stimuli. The psychology of the said organism simply consists in the relationship between the various stimuli and response. This position was prominent not only in Philosophy but was also widely accepted in psychology with its most notable proponents being B.F Skinner and John B. Watson. For the behaviourist, talk of a hidden mental realm which exists between the stimuli and the response is a fiction. Being in the mental state is no more than the tendency to react to certain stimuli with certain responses. For example, being in pain is no more than a tendency to move away and vocalize the sound  'Ouch' when hit by hard a object with considerable force.  


As you can see this simple form of Behaviourism is rather lacking. As behaviour is neither necessary or sufficient for the ascription of a mental state. Take the example of an extraordinary actor who was pretending to be in pain, if the actors acting skills were so refined in that his behaviour was indistinguishable from someone who was actually in pain. This would show that behaviour alone is not necessary for the ascription of a particular mental state. For a brief period of time during the 1940's a plant toxin called Curare was used as anesthetic. In fact Curare does not work as anesthetic but merely causes the total temporary paralysis of a particular subject. A patient being operated on while paralyzed by Curare would be in considerable pain but would not be able to provide any observable evidence indicating their pain. This example shows that behaviour is also not sufficient for the ascription of pain, as it is possible to be in pain without any observational behaviour. 


Another problem for Behaviourism as outlined by those like Skinner and Watson, is the distance between certain mental states and the observational behaviour which would confirm that particular mental. Take the belief that Oxford University is the best University in the United Kingdom, what behaviour would verify this. It seems it could be near impossible isolate the correct behaviour for ascribing such a belief.  


Philosophers did not have to accept such radical methodological behaviorism, with the majority behaviourist philosophers adopting what is commonly referred to as Logical Behaviourism. Logical Behaviourism is not a theory regarding how experimental psychology should be undertaken it is instead a semantic theory about the meaning of mental terms. According to Logical Behaviourism, the attribution of a mental state to a person or animal simply consists in saying that the person or animal is disposed to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. For example saying James is thirsty is simply to say that James is disposed to drink water if exposed to an appropriate opportunity to drink some water. This is a considerable improvement over basic behaviourism as it allows the behavioural analysis to open ended or infinite, so it seems we are much better equipped when we are dealing beliefs and other complicated subject matter. We may be able to analyse the belief that Oxford is the best university in the United Kingdom into an opened set of behavioural statements, such as 'Remarking on the reputation of Oxford as a University when asked'. Even if it is not possible in practice to complete such a set of dispositions, the fact that it remains logically possible is enough for maintaining Logical Behaviourism. Logical Behaviourism is also advantageous as it does not require that the abandonment of mental talk as long as we remember that talk of the mental could be replaced by a complete behavioural analysis. 


Even with all of this being said in favor of Logical Behaviourism there still seems to be one crucial objection to overcome namely that behaviour is neither necessary or sufficient  for the ascription of mental states. But it can be argued that this objection can also be overcome by adopting a richer notion of what constitutes behaviour. The most successful attempt at this was made Hempel in his 1935 paper The Logical Analysis of Psychology. Adopting a verificationist theory of meaning and construing behaviour in the widest possible sense it can be argued that Hempel showed that behaviour is both necessary and sufficient for the ascription of mental states. But whether we are willing to accept Hempel's verification theory of meaning and his wider notion of behaviour which includes every physical fact about a subject is a different matter. For one verificationist theory of meaning have been shown to be hugely problematic and much of what Hempel takes to be Behaviour is deeply debatable. As Hempel seems to be using the word behaviour in way that is contrary to our every day understanding of the term. In fact I believe Hempel's theory has many features in common with some of the identity theories that took the place of Behaviorism in the philosophical community.  


A number of other objections have made against Logical Behaviourism. Concerns have made about how Behaviourism fails to provide an account of mental-mental causation. Take the following the example 'Jill's fear of dogs and her belief that a dog is in front of her causes her to run away'. Behaviourism seems to struggle to explain such cases mental-mental causation as it appears that there is no way to explain such cases in terms of explicit behaviour. Again it could be argued that this objection could be avoided by adopting a richer notion of what constitutes behaviour to include facts about the persons physiology. This is related to another objection about the alleged circularity of the behaviourist project, there will be a vast number of appropriate responses to any one stimuli with differing responses being largely down to the differing beliefs of the subject. Therefore it seems there is no way to analyse away the mental without positing beliefs or desires that are not explicitly observable in behaviour.  


I'm going to finish off with one final objection (and one bad joke) to behaviourism, it seems that we do not access our own mental states by observing our own behaviour but through first person introspection. This alleged absurdity with behaviourism is often put in the form of a joke. 

Two behaviourist psychologists are talking to each after sex, one of them says to the other 'I see can that you enjoyed yourself, but how was it for me'?

Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind III: Non-Cartesian Dualism

Not all Dualists are of the Cartesian variety discussed in the previous post in this series. These Philosophers are known as Non-Cartesian Dualists. One type of Non-Cartesian Dualism is known as a property dualism. Property Dualism only posits one kind of substance but this substance has two distinct properties namely mental and physical properties. One well known example of Non-Cartesian Dualism is Donald Davidson's Anomalous Monism. Davidson's dualism will not be our focus in today's post rather we will focus on another prominent example of Non-Cartesian Dualism. 


Lowe's Non-Cartesian Dualism 
E.J Lowe is probably the most influential dualist in philosophy of the mind at the moment, with his form of Non-Cartesian Dualism having made significant impact. Lowe is interested in the identity conditions in cases of strict identity for token items. Let me briefly explain the token/type divide which many readers may not be familiar with. Generally in our common usage of language when we talk about something be identical with something else; we are talking of type identity. Two relatives with a strikingly similar nose may be said to have the same nose, in this instance we are talking in terms of type identity. Token identity differs in that when we say that two things are token identical we really only have one token instance. 


Lowe's Non-Cartersian Dualism is interested in how an object can be picked out or individuated. For this purpose Lowe sets out five rules of identity, three uncontroversial and generally accepted and two rules of his own which are intended to clarify the relationship between the mind and body. 


Lowe's Rules of Identity 

1. Before any sensible talk can be made about something it must be picked out or individuated. There are two ways of classifying things: i) Classification as individuation (eg. Descartes and Lowe are people) and ii) Classification as characterization where I go on to tell you certain things about various individuated objects (eg. Lowe works in a University department studying the Philosophy of Mind). 
2. Leibniz's Law, this states that if two things which exist at the same time (say A and B), are  identical with one another then any properties of A must be properties of B and vice versa.  
3. When we individuate things we make room for re-identifying it. Namely you ascribe particular persistence conditions. To individuate something in a meaningful way you must have some idea of what it is for something to come in and come out of existence. 
4. Lowe's first rule. If two things have token identity (explained earlier) then they must have come into existence at same time and have the same persistence conditions. 
5. Lowe's second rule. You cannot individuate one thing in two different ways but multiple characterizations of a thing can be possible.  

For Lowe this laws are meant to show us how it is possible that a person is not necessarily identical with their body but at the same time isn't separable from their body either. One clear example of this is that for Lowe I'm not identical with the mass or composition molecules that make up my body at any one time. As the mass of molecules that make up my body is liable to change over time and we wouldn't want to say I ceased to exist every time my bodily composition changed. According to Lowe a person is metaphysically dependent on their body, so a body is required for person-hood. E.J Lowe thinks that mind and body are distinct substances which happen to share a number of properties (for example person hood or self hood requires the existence of a body). 

Non-Cartesian Dualism a more attractive proposition? 

It seems clear that a sophisticated Non-Cartesian Dualism, such as the Dualism offered by E.J Lowe and Donald Davidson is certainly superior to the Dualism offered by Descartes. But does this mean that it makes for a more attractive proposition than Cartesian Dualism and I would have to say that such Dualism is still extremely problematic. For example what is often taken to be the real problem for Descartes account namely Mind-Body causation seems to apply equally here and there seems to be no simple way to account for how the mind and body are meant to causally interact.

Introduction to Philosophy of Mind II : Positions on the Mind-Body Problem

In this post we will examine some of the various positions taken on the Mind-Body problem. An examination of the Mind-Body problem requires us to determine if the mental realm is different or the same as the physical. For example we might want to say that the mind is totally equivalent with our physical brain, though this position is by no means held by everyone. 

Theories about mind can be divided into two distinct varieties. One the one hand there are monist theories which claim that the world consists of one kind stuff or substance. On the other hand their are dualist theories which claim that world consists of two substances: typically the mental and the physical. Monism the theory that the world consists of one fundamental substance comes in four distinct varieties each of which I will briefly outline. 

Four Distinct Varieties of Monism 

• Idealism or Solipsism, is the idea that the world is completely mental. Idealism claims that there is only one thing to our ontology, namely ideas. Idealism however suffers from a couple of serious problems. Firstly, Idealism seems to have problems in accounting for the persistence of objects. It seems that Idealist is going to struggle to explain how objects persist during periods of time when they are unperceived.  Secondly, experience appears to involuntary, what we experience appears to be caused by something beyond ourselves (a physical world perhaps?). Historically Berkeley is the best known proponent of Idealism and sought to avoid some of the apparent problems of Idealism by bringing God into the picture. The Solipsist extends this and claims that the whole of existence is constituted by their Ideas, everything is taken to be an Idea within their own mind. 
• Physicalism: the physicalist makes the claim that there is only one kind of stuff and that stuff is of the physical kind. The Physicalist project requires that everything must at least be explained or reduced to the physical. Typically this has led physicalists to reduce mental properties and events to brain states or properties of the physical brain. For example a physicalist may claim that being in pain will ultimately be shown to be nothing more than being in a particular relevant brain state.  
• Neutral Monism holds that reality is neither mental or physical as we understand the terms but really consists of one kind other stuff perhaps encompassing both the mental and the physical. 
• Mental and Physical Monism, reality is essentially a single substance, but at the same time is both mental and physical. This leads to a kind of Panpsychism where the fundamental building blocks of the universe are to be taken both experiential and physical. Adopting such a position could lead us to hold that inanimate objects such as rocks may have some kind of conscious experience. One example of a prominent modern panpsychist would be the University of Reading's Galen Strawson.  

Dualism 

The major alternative to the forms of Monism is to adopt Dualism. The best known form of Dualism is substance dualism also commonly known as Cartesian Dualism due to the fact it originates in the work of the French Philosopher Rene Descartes. It this Substance Dualism that the rest of this post will most prominently focus on due to it's significant influence and historical importance. However it is important to note that their are other forms of Dualism. Substance or Cartesian Dualism isn't the only Dualist show in town. 

Unsurprisingly, Cartesian Dualism posits two different kinds of substance material bodies and thinking things. Descartes held that there is real distinction between minds and bodies, he felt that they were fundamentally different kinds of thing. Descartes differentiated between Res Cogitans- a thinking and Res Extensa an extended physical thing. What constitutes a person is a matter of  res cogitans not Res Extensa. Descartes offers up two different arguments to this effect, the argument from doubt and the argument from clear and distinct ideas. 

Philosophy Video: Authors@Google: John Searle

This sixty five minute video see's international respected Philosopher John Searle come into Google's Californian headquarters to talk about his latest book. The said book being Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power. This book published under abnormal circumstances as Searle mentions at the beginning of the talk consists of two essays, one on Political Freedom and the other on Free Will. The Google authors talk is solely related to the question of Free Will with Searle talking about Free Will for around half an hour with the rest of the video consisting of questions asked by various Google staff. Though not a philosophical audience many of the Google staff ask intelligent and insightful questions. As always Searle is a brilliant orator and remains one of my favorite lecturers on the subject of Philosophy of Mind even if I do not agree with every thing he says. Those interested in the question of Free Will might find this video worth a watch if they have free time.

Introduction to Philosophy of Mind: I - The Key Problems in the Philosophy of Mind

This post will the be the first post in what I hope will become a 10 post introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. The Philosophy of Mind is probably one of the most exciting areas of current philosophical research and is of great interest to many. Philosophy of Mind is also one of the areas of Philosophy that pays the closest attention to developments in physical sciences. Today, I hope to clearly set out some of the key questions in the philosophy of mind which are still hotly debated about today. 


The Mind-Body Problem 
Possibly the oldest problem in the philosophy of mind. The Mind-Body problem was first raised by the early modern philosopher Rene Descartes who famously declared himself to be a primarily a thinking thing. The Mind-Body problem is concerned with what the relationship between the physical body and the mind. This is primarily a ontological question (ontology is concerned with what exists) - how many kinds of substance does the world contain? We appear to have a special place in the physical world as it appears that we have rich mental life which is not shared by many other things including inanimate objects and certain animals. What is the relation between our rich mental life and the physical world, does the mental emerge from the physical or is there interaction between the physical and the mental. In recent times many unversed in philosophy seem to consider the mind to be simply equivalent to the physical brain, but the Mind-Body problem is still hotly debated within Philosophy. 


The Problem of Consciousness 
Related to the Mind-Body problem is the problem of Consciousness. This area of the philosophy of mind consists of several key questions about the nature of Consciousness. Namely, what exactly is consciousness? How and why are we Conscious? Are there different kinds or levels of Consciousness, do dogs for example experience a lower level consciousness? The questions surrounding the problem of consciousness are part epistemic (related to knowledge and the scope of knowledge); for example is it problematic that it appears that I can know my own metal states by introspection but I cannot know yours through the same method. The problem is also partly ontological with some struggling to see how Consciousness fits in with the physical world doubting whether consciousness can arise from physically closed world. 


The Problem of Intentionality 
In my opinion the most dry of the hotly debated issues within the Philosophy of Mind, this is the problem of representation. How can it be that a mental state is capable of representing another kind of thing such as a belief or state of affairs in the world. Again there seems the overarching problem facing the whole of Philosophy of Mind of how a physical event like a brain state for instance can represent a belief or instance of thinking. How can my brain state B1 represent the belief that Glasgow is North of London. What does it mean to have beliefs and desires? A number of different solutions have been offered in response to this question, none seem completely satisfactory. 


The Problem of Qualitative States 
This relates to the fact that our Conscious states seem to have a particular conscious feel, for example when I eat a hotdog there is something what it is like to have that particular experience. Namely experience has a particular qualitative feel. This has raised significant problems for Physicalism as some Philosophers have suggested that no purely physical explanation could account for this qualitative part of conscious experience. But this seems to raise a problem concerning what exactly are these qualia (Qualitative feel) are. Some such as Daniel Dennett have contended that Qualia don't really exist in the fundamental sense that we believe. But this kind of view seems highly counter intuitive as it appears we have an incorrigible believe that experience such Qualitative states. The problem of Qualia seems to be a threat to those who hope to explain the Mind in purely physical terms and therefore is a very hotly debated issue.