The ‘Sensation-Brain Process Identity Theory’ posed by J.J.C. Smart is the view that a sensation is a just a brain process. In the strict sense of identity a sensation and a brain processes are two names for one thing. Similarly, the one thing people refer to when they talk about ‘the morning star’ or ‘the evening star’ is Venus. There exists only one physical component to this world from which we derive other statements like ‘the morning star is the last star you can see in the morning.’ ‘The morning star’ happens to be Venus. A sensation happens to be a process. A brain process more obviously is also a process. When we talk about sensations or a brain process we are talking about the same process. The one particular process being referred to ‘is’ in the strict sense a single thing like Venus. When we talk about a sensation or a brain-process we do so to designate one and the same component of living humans.
Assuming his existence, the name Superman picks out a particular individual. We can refer to this individual thing by the name Superman. Superman is just a name which picks out a particular guy who also happens to be referred to by another name Clark Kent. Superman and Clark Kent are strictly identical. The two terms refer to one thing i.e. a superhero alien who disguises himself as a nerdy reporter. Similarly brain-processes and sensations refer to the same thing. A sensation state is a state of a physical component. A Brain state is a state of a physical component. The very same physical component ‘is’ being referred to by reporting either sensation states or brain processes just like referring to the same alien by talking about ‘Superman’ or ‘Clark Kent’.
Smart does not think that Sensations are caused by brain processes...
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... it means to experience a lower than average amount of molecular kinetic energy. In the second case Smart would say the Russian peasant is referring to the amount of molecular kinetic energy in the Russian tundra. Smart uses the case of lightning as an example of this. People can talk perfectly well about lightning, but know nothing about electrical discharges. Smart on page 147 puts it as “Note that there are not two things: a flash of lightning and an electrical discharge. There is one thing, a flash of lightning, which is described scientifically as an electrical discharge.” In the illiterate peasant case, Smart thinks the peasant is talking about something which ‘happens to be’ identical in the strict sense to a brain process. The peasant is referring to a brain process in the same way as when people refer to electrical discharges when talking about lightning.
In this paper, I will argue that it is more likely that the qualia of colour could be explained by physicalism rather than by property dualism. Qualia are subjective experiences, such as our senses (pg. 3). Physicalism views every property as physical, and can be explained by science (pg. 29). Property dualism refers to the philosophical view that minds are made out of one substance, but contain physical properties, and a non-physical mind (qualia) that are not related to each other (pg. 29).
He claims that science has been used extensively to describe almost every property of the world. Science has led to the description of the world as a compilation of “increasingly complex arrangements of physical constituents” (Rosen 372). However, an aspect that is not included in science’s complex explanation of the world is states of consciousness, like sensations and pains.
The brain receives input and somehow transforms it into output. How does it do it? In part because of the extraordinary technological feats achieved using digital processing computers, the brain has often been interpreted as a symbol manipulator and its cognitive activities as the transformation of symbols according to rules. By contrast, recent successes with parallel distributed processing computers have encouraged a connectionist theory of mind which regards the brain as a pattern recognizer and its cognitive activities as the transformation of neuronal activation patterns; however, these pattern transformations are not rule-governed processes, but straightforwardly causal processes in which networked units (neurons) excite and inhibit each other's activation level.
This paper aims to endorse physicalism over dualism by means of Smart’s concept of identity theory. Smart’s article Sensations and the Brain provides a strong argument for identity theory and accounts for many of it primary objections. Here I plan to first discuss the main arguments for physicalism over dualism, then more specific arguments for identity theory, and finish with further criticisms of identity theory.
Newman, J. B., Banks, W. P., & Baars, B. J. (2003). Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
To conclude this essay, I like to emphazise that Rosenthal's HOT is more of an empirical hypothesis, rather than an analysis of the term ‘consciousness.’ His aim is precisely to explain the phenomena of consciousness in relation to other mental states, such as thought and perception, and while achieving this, he has elaborated a theoretical structure for comprehending the functions of our mind.
...logical, and scientific manner. Even to this day many people still raise the question about the unity of consciousness. As Elizabeth Schechter stated in her work “This work is about individuating mental tokens from a theoretical or scientific perspective, and about the insights that the split brain studies yield into such individualization. It focuses on two questions about mental tokens in split brain subjects in particular: how many minds they have, and how many streams of consciousness they have.”
The diagnosis of epilepsy is usually made after the patient experiences a second unprovoked seizure (Leppik, 2002). Diagnosis is often difficult, however, since it is unlikely that the physician will actually see the patient experience and epileptic seizure, and therefore must rely heavily on patient’s history. An electroencephalography (EEG) is often used to examine the patient’s brain waves, and some forms of epilepsy can be revealed by a characteristic disturbance in electrical frequency (Bassick, 1993). The variations in frequency can take form as spikes or sharp waves (Fisher, 1995). The variations are divided into two groups, ictal electrograph abnormalities, which are disturbances resulting from seizure activity, and interictal electrograph abnormalities, or disturbances between seizures. The EEG can also give clues as to which region of the brain the disturbances arise from. Interictal temporal spikes will predict the side of seizure origin in 95% of patients if three times as ...
Current research shows that mental events cause physical events, and scientists believe examining single nerves is the key to understanding how the brain works as a complete unit. Understanding the brain at the nerve cell level will allow scientists to understand how human consciousness works (Blakeslee, 1992). Furthermore, the brain's thalamus is identified as the possible sensory connector because it fires 40 impulses per second that sweep through the entire brain (Blakeslee, 1995a). These findings are a serious implication to Dualism because it states the mind is not physical. If the mind is not physical, it cannot affect the physical body, so the Dualist theory of two-sided interactions between the body and mind are false. The aforementioned argument is supported by many other scientific facts and objections against Dualism.
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
an active state in the mind or whether it is a mental state, like a
Sensation refers to the process of sensing what is around us in our environment by using our five senses, which are touching, smell, taste, sound and sight. Sensation occurs when one or more of the various sense organs received a stimulus. By receiving the stimulus, it will cause a mental or physical response. It starts in the sensory receptor, which are specialized cells that convert the stimulus to an electric impulse which makes it ready for the brain to use this information and this is the passive process. After this process, the perception comes into play of the active process. Perception is the process that selects the information, organize it and interpret that information.
Visual perception and visual sensation are both interactive processes, although there is a significant difference between the two processes. Sensation is defined as the stimulation of sense organs Visual sensation is a physiological process which means that it is the same for everyone. We absorb energy such as electro magnetic energy (light) or sound waves by sensory organs such as eyes. This energy is then transduced into electro chemical energy by the cones and rods (receptor cells) in the retina. There are four main stages of sensation. Sensation involves detection of stimuli incoming from the surrounding world, registering of the stimulus by the receptor cells, transduction or changing of the stimulus energy to an electric nerve impulse, and then finally the transmission of that electrical impulse into the brain. Our brain then perceives what the information is. Hence perception is defined as the selection, organisation and interpretation of that sensory input.
If we explain sensory coding within an example; a bitter sweet taste sensation won't take place in our tonge, it takes place in our brains, but the tasting experience in brain impulses is also caused by electrical impulses in taste receptors on the tongue. Thus, our receptors play an important part when we associate external factors with our natural life. Our conscious perceptions of numerous aspects is caused by special neural event that happened in the receptors. Receptors and the connection passages code the intensity and quality of the stimuli.
To fully understand what we currently know about consciousness, we need to take a look at what scientists have uncovered about the human brain and its role in it.