In the natural sciences, it doesn’t matter how you phrase your theories, as long as you make clear which outcome you anticipate. If two scientists expect exactly the same things to happen, they are in agreement, no matter how they call some particle. If you cannot make testable predictions, words begin to matter. This is where most philosophy starts, and this is what makes it hard to treat philosophy in a rigid scientific way. Sometimes philosophy makes claims that lie somewhere in between testable and purely philosophical [1]. “Sensations are brain-processes” is one of these and this paper examines it from a philosophical point of view.

This thesis, brought forward by the British philosopher and psychologist Ullin Place in 1956 and defended by the Australian philosopher John Smart in 1959, holds that, in contrast to behaviourism, mental states should not be identified with behavior but with neural states. When we are talking about what we feel, we are talking about a process in our brain — if we are talking about a process at all. According to Smart, a sensation is a brain-process in the same sense that lightning is an electric discharge. They are not only correlated, since correlation would imply that sensations are more than physical events. They are strictly identical: Two words describing the same thing. Weiterlesen »

There are two ways to present Descartes’ thoughts on mind, body and the interrelationship between these two and both are entirely inappropriate. Let me say a few things about his methodology to make clear what I mean: Descartes decided to set aside everything that wasn’t obviously and entirely true, just as if it had been proven false. This has astonishing consequences: Everything our senses tell us has to be assumed possibly wrong – in fact, the assumption that we have senses goes one step too far.

Start with the simplest possible assumption set, allow the addition of obvious-in-hindsight ideas exclusively and if you manage not to stray from this principle throughout your meditations, what you end up with is a philosophical framework that is both too deceptively simple to be part of an impressive, serious-sounding philosophical essay and too deep to let itself be obfuscated by a bunch of unnecessary technical terms Descartes himself, sitting in the large bread oven where he used to spend much of his time thinking and meditating, would have laughed at. Weiterlesen »

Was ich gerne vor Beginn meines Studiums in Osnabrück gewusst hätte.

Unter anderem: Wie das erste Semester aussieht. Was man in den einzelnen Fächern lernt. Wer das Studium nach zwei Semestern abbrechen wird. Wie die Bachelor-Note zustande kommt. Was Cognitive-Science-Studenten nach dem Studium machen. Bonus: Zusammenfassungen der Vorlesungen, Mitschriften und Beispielaufgaben.

Lies weiter und du erfährst, ob du Cognitive Science studieren willst und wie du das erste Semester überstehst. Weiterlesen »