Examples Of Eliminative Materialism

Philosophy Essay

Within the realm of philosophy, how creatures operate is a mystery that craves to be solved. Within Paul Churchland’s “Matter and Consciousness”, materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism attempt to explain such mystery.

Materialism theory expresses everything is related to physical properties. Mental states are numerically identical with a physical state. Physical states would be referred to the brain or nervous system. If this theory were to be proven true, parts of the brain would have a segment for feelings, beliefs, etc. Identity theory is another way of expressing such, due to the direct one-to-one correlation. This futuristic thinking hasn’t been developed from scratch, it is mirroring off of older theories.

This kind of theory is best regarded as inter-theoretic reduction. Examples of this would be regarding heat as total molecular energy, or coldness as the lack of such molecular energy. So far this theory all things are observable, going off of a common sense framework.
This “identity theory”, is adored for a few of its strong points. First, every being has physical origins and a physical constitution. Due to lack of proof stating otherwise, it makes this highly irrefutable. These beings are genetically programmed mono-cellular organizations of molecules, developed further from accretion of further molecules controlled information coded by DNA. Second, evolutionary theory is the only serious explanation for the brain. It would be difficult to refute that molecular structure came into being out of nothing. As well the brain is responsible for controlling capacities and the nervous system. This was brought about by the reproductive advantage of behavior controlled creatures. Third is the neural dependency of all known phenomena. Without physical structure, there would be no sustaining that life. Fourth is the neural science in creatures nervous system, determines the behavioral capacities and deficits of said creature. This reason tags along with evolution but also explains why a shark would last longer than a fish. Those neurosciences should be successful with continuing history.
The identity theory, like other theories, is not perfect. It is meaningless to say that one thing is located at this part of the brain and that something else is located elsewhere. Reason being is that some creatures may react differently due to previous experiences. Take for example happiness, not everyone jumps up and down in joy when something goes their way. There can never be a one-to-one correspondence ratio due to physique of many creatures. Going back to the example of happiness, one can’t say that people are happy only when they wag their tail because of dog’s behavior. There is no set structure, such as if c and d exists, and then it must be e.
Along with no set structure, it can’t be said that things are the same because of a few attributes. This is in regards to Leibniz’s law. If two items are numerically identical, than any property had by either one of those items is the same. When written in math notation form, for any attribute for x is the equivalent of attribute to y. An example to this is red pen and a red marker. They both have redness and they can be made by the same company and have a same design, but doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Does this mean the law is always valid, not really the case. Take for example love, a couple could love each other because of what they bring to table or could be just from their being. In this case both of those would constitute as love.
Looking at a relation to root causes and results is also a way that can help describe how creatures operate, Functionalism does just that. Essential features towards a particular mental state are multiple casual relations as opposed to just one feature or characteristic. These relations can be anything from environmental effects, to other mental states to even bodily behavior. Taking a look at pain for example, the result of it could be bodily damage or trauma. This can ultimately cause distress and even annoyance to the victim while they try to find nursing to that said pain. Sensations, fears, beliefs are complex internal states mediating sensory inputs and/or behaviors. How this differs from materialism is that they do not believe in one-to-one correspondence for mental and brain states. They get their reasoning from what is called the alien theory. If extraterrestrials can sustain life as efficiently as humans or better, then there can be multiple physiques that produce great civilizations.
It could be misunderstood as to why philosophers are attracted to this particular theory. This theory is attractive, due to the belief of mental states being essentially functional states. Functionalism places psychology concerns at abstract levels. It is regarded that psychology is methodologically autonomous; being it creates fields such as cognitive psychology and/or artificial intelligence reasoning. Ultimately, this leads up to reasoning of finding answers to “who are we”.
Contrary to popular belief of how validly strong this argument is, this theory does have its flaws. Functionalism ignores qualitative nature of mental states, missing many essential mental state types. This is also depicted through the inverted spectrum thought experiment. A color sensation one enjoys is inversely relative to ones another enjoys. One could see a fruit, such as a tomato, the color of red while another might see it as green. According to functionalism, they are the same state and don’t make sense to question either spectrum. Personal experience, how something feels to an individual, also plays an objection to the theory. The lack of such experience is referred to as absent qualia. Taking the example of conscience intelligence, there are multiple ways to get there and all of those methods are radically different than the next. Functionalism also lacks to specify where clarification is needed. Take the example of temperature, temperature in-a-gas means the accumulation of kinetic energy of those types of molecules. The word temperature is to general with lacking to define which kinds of molecules are being discussed.
As the world becomes more technical every day, so do the particulars within it. Eliminative materialism holds to getting rid of folk psychology for more scientific definitions for different aspects of life. In other words, it attempts to render all mind language as false. So instead of saying “I love you”, the scientifically correct phrase would be a section of my brain is chemically reacting towards a particular extreme. The scientifically correct way of saying I’m sad, would be another section of my body is lacking said chemical. Eliminative materialism has been practiced throughout history, such as caloric or phlogiston. Caloric was once thought of as what flowed through species creating heat within the body. Later to be proven would be a movement of molecules, is the correct classification for inner heat. Likewise, phlogiston use to be thought of as the reaction to something burning. This has been discontinued due to more recent scientific evidence disproving the theory.
Eliminative materialism has the futuristic approach, searching for specific definitions to abstract ideas.

This hard deterministic approach is one reason why ones’ argue for eliminative materialism. It attempts to draw inductive lessons from conceptual history. Eliminative materialism will also attempt to point out failures caused by folk psychology. What is central for most still remains a mystery in folk psychology. Some examples of such would be sleep, maturing process from babies to adults, memory process, or even curing mental illness. The mistake here is misleadingly try to solve it though inferior methods, as argued by eliminative materialists. Eliminative materialists will argue that this argument has a more way in of apriori knowledge, knowledge from past events, than the previous two theories mentioned. It also claims that folk psychology will never have vindicating matchups with matured

neuroscience.
While eliminative materialism may seem like the final destination for clarifying life’s questions, it is nowhere near complete.

“One’s introspection reveals directly the existence of pains, beliefs, desires, fears, and so forth.”(Page 33) It is easily argued everyone has introspection; therefore the argument in favor of eliminative materialism seems misleading. “All observation occurs within some system of concepts, and our observation judgements are only as good as the conceptual framework in which they are expressed.”(Page 33) A second contradiction is that the argument believes boldly that there are no such things as mental states. Ironically, it then goes onto say that “only if it is the expression of a certain belief, and an intention to communicate, and a knowledge of the language, and so forth.”(Page 34) “If eliminative materialism is true, then meaningfulness must have some different source.” (Page 34) The argument has also been taken that it makes big exaggerations out of nothing of such worth. It focuses too much on “the defects in folk psychology, and underplays its real success.”(Page 34) Without folk psychology, it maybe that this society have a more advanced society but at what cost would that

need?
If one were to further reflect on what is within an eliminative framework, they would have to think about everyday language that they use. Phrases like “I will always care about you.” or “I will never be happy with anyone else”, would become obsolete. What would be scientifically correct in these scenarios would be “The chemical reaction my body creates when you are present doesn’t react the same with another individual.” While this is an interesting approach to the future, I don’t belief it would have more advantages than disadvantages. While it may be true that chemical reactions due take place when different situations occur, it is not the entire equation. This would indicate that saying such would only be saying half of the equation at best.
If one were to look at this, in terms of substance dualism, people who would be in favor of the three theories would be generally considered Cartesian dualists. If one were to think that the three theories would be insufficient with explaining the mystery, they would be considered in favor of dualism interactionism. Cartesian dualism being in favor that there is no immaterial mind, and that dualism interactionism immaterial mind exists and is relevant.