Physicalism & Consciousness 1

1. There are 3 typical arguments giving when trying to understand what consciousness is: 1.Explanatory gap 2.Zombies 3. Jackson's knowledge argument

1.1. Explanatory gap Physical explanations only explain structure/function and not consciousness No physical explanation of consciousness. What cannot be explained physically is not physical - so con is not physical Nagel: Consequence of difference between subjective/objective. Subjective facts only accessible from one point of view. Objective facts are accessible from many. We do not know what it is like to be a bat as we are not the bat. We would have to remove the viewpoint of the bat. Nagel is against physicalism but doesn't show that it is wrong. Still, he is not arguing for property dualism, but he is motivating in that direction. Modal argument.

1.2. Zombies - claim about epistemic case - conceivability (physicalism is false and property dualism is true) A priori argument - synthetic claim to do with reasoning and conceivability Same as humans but no phenomenal consciousness The argument - it is metaphysically possible that there is consciousness No gap - zombies are not conceivable - Deny epistemological premise Gap - zombies conceivable - tells us nothing about how the world is Physicalism must claim that phenomenal properties are, or are metaphysically fixed by, physical properties, so zombies are metaphysically impossible.

2. The challenge Physicalism is the view that everything is physical/depends upon something physical Properties identified by physics Depends -- Supervenience -- Metaphysical determination What is consciousness? Physical properties/processes? 1. Cartesian dualism - property of distinct mental subject 2. Physicalism - property of the brain, metaphysically determined by physical properties 3. Property dualism - con is a property of brain, but properties of con are not themselves physical (natural kind of fundamental property not determined by physical property)