One of my pet subjects since I was an undergraduate has been Philosophy of Mind. Unfortunately, I was never a very good student as an undergraduate, so don't have as good a grasp on the subject matter as I would like. Nevertheless, imho, Phil. of Mind is critical to a study of consciousness, and thought experiments and conclusions derived from Phil. of Mind should help drive high level study of cognition.
A good example is phenomenology(which some may argue is not Phil. of Mind, to which I would respectfully disagree). Cognitive Science understanding of perception has advanced to a point at which phenomenological arguments, such as those from Merleau-Ponty are critical to framing the future conversation of where the science is headed. In fact, I believe that we are fairly close to be able to design and test experiments based on different tenets contained within phenomenology. This specific meshing of experimental psychology and philosophy, is dear to my heart, as I did my undergraduate thesis on this.
Thus, I posit, that as an experimental psychologist, it is critical that I improve my knowledge and understanding of Philosophy of Mind. I recently engaged in a discussion regarding Freewill and Determinism. Specifically, we discussed the conundrum (imho) that a complete belief in hard determinism, and therefore a lack of agency, freewill, voluntariness, and origination, if you will[1], should cause the person who holds such a belief a specific, tangible problem with living life. Why do anything? Without the ability to originate your own choices and take actions, without the ability to have voluntary thoughts, actions, choices, why do anything at all? Why act? Why not just sit in a room and be comatose?
Freewill and Determinism, of course, is a loaded subject, with myriad articles having been written on the subject. A quick google search turns up well over 600,ooo websites. The fourth link is The Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website, maintained by Ted Honderich, a professor at Univ. College of London. It contains links to many of the critical philosophical writings on the topic, as well as a neat glossary I link to in the footnotes. It seems that my question is addressed to the incompatibilist viewpoint. When I have time, I'll go over some of the incompatabilist writings, and see whether the issue is addressed.
If anyone else holds the incompatabilist viewpoint, I'd love to hear from you.
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[1] See Honderich's Glossary of freewill terminology for a quick explanation of terms.
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PS> This was originally posted at back in bj, but that's now private, so I'm reposting it here for public consumption.
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Well first off I think a lot of Phil. of Mind people don't even distinguish it as different from cognitive science. Particularly those of us with a more reductionist bent. Of course I am not talking about the pithy reductionism of identity theory. Simply those who think it vulnerable to naturalistic explanation.
The word phenomeonology scares me, almost everything I read in it screams tautology or Sokal hoax at me. If you are simply saying that the Phil. of Mind thought experiments have things to add to the real experiments of Cognitive Psychology then of course I would agree with you.
People have previously queried me about the friction between life and being a hard determinist. I do not think there is one. I guess I view compatibalism as somewhat true, but also essentially dodging the issue.
Not that I think the compatibilists are wrogn per se, just that their response is not aimed at the type of "metaphysical" will the problem originally arose about. They cite a lack of need to respond to nonsense concepts, and they are right it is a nonsense concept, but then I think this makes their position not actually any different from a hard determinist IN THE IMPORTANT RESPECTS. I don't think hard determinists are won't to say we can't call certain thigns decisions or wills (which is really the heart fo compatibilism).
Do you imagine ants would behave any differently if you call the processes which lead to their actions "wills" or not? I don't think they would and don't think we are any different. We behave the way we are determined to behave. The only meaningful way in which we are different form ants is that our minds are sophisticated enough to understand the nature of our existence.
The fact that life is a ride/game of sorts doesn't need to prevent me from doing what I would like to do. Just as a little algorithm steering a boat down a river "wants" to avoid rocks, and will do so; I "want" to have fun, have pleasure, make friends, and thus I do so.
This is a bit of a ramble but just kind of making a stream of thought response.
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