Sensations and Brain Processes — J.J.C Smart

Notes from Smart’s Essay on Philosophy of Mind (Physicalism)

Background

1. This paper was published in the 1950s and brings light to the theory of mind-brain identity theory, also known as ‘Australian materialism’

2. This piece is broken down into three main parts: first laying out the previous other physicalist theories, the second Smart posing the hypothesis of sensations as merely brain processes (and giving examples), and finally Smart responding to common objections against this theory.

Yellowish-orange After Image Example

Smart uses the example of a yellowish-orange after image (for example someone looking at the sun and back) to draw attention to a phenomenological experience that is purely subjective.

A yellowish-orange after image compared to the experience of seeing a chair is very different as the chair can be said to have an existence outside of that perception compared to an after-image which is only true from that person's point of view. He furthers this point by saying that one’s report of such an image is merely a temptation to report something which is visible to others but does not actually represent a phenomenon in the physical world.

By drawing focus to this example, Smart wants to discuss the inability of the physical sciences to effectively explain it.

Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein states that language is a method of representing phenomena, it does not explain the phenomenon, only giving a limited insight into the thing itself. An example of this would be the reporting of pain, one is not explaining what the pain is, but really it is just replacing crying.

Why Pain Is A Poor Example.

Smart justifies his choice of using a yellowish-after image to demonstrate his hypothesis instead of pain because Smart believes

• the report of pain to him entails reporting a state of distress
• and a state of distress is subject to behaviouristic analysis

And this could mislead us into concluding that pain is irreducibly psychical.

Smart wants to avoid the suggestion that pain or an afterimage is something irreducibly psychical as it puts it outside of the realm of physical observation which he doesn’t agree with.

Why Smart Doesn't Want To Posit A Realm Of Psychical (Dualism)?

Smart appeals to Occam’s razor (that the simplest explanation is usually the explanation that is the most accurate).

He argues that science is increasingly giving us the view whereby organisms can be seen as physio-chemical mechanisms: and that it seems that the behavior of humans will be explained in mechanistic terms.

Smart posits the view that everything so far seems to be able to explain in terms of physics, and that states of consciousness should lie outside of this system of explanations seems to be absurd (calling in a nomological danger).

definition: nomological danglers

• a thing which does not fit within the system of established laws — in this case, Smart is referring to the example of sensations.

Smart proceeds to tackle the objection

• “Why can’t there be psycho-physical laws which are of a novel sort, just as the laws of electricity and magnetism?”
• This to Smart because first of all, it presupposes to realms and that there are laws in which we can relate these realms
• And that these laws would have to explain how billions and billions of particles are put together to affect the psychical realm
• As Smart imagine laws to relate simple constructs not complex systems of particles to a separate non-physical realm.

Smart Against the Expressive Account

Smart takes issue with the expressive account of sensations as he believes that when someone reports that ‘they are in pain’

• There is something that they are actually reporting
• And it is not a “replace pain-behavior”

However Smart wants to make this distinction that it is a genuine report without claiming that there is a non-physical realm in which these sensations occur.

Smart’s Main Hypothesis

Smart’s main claim is that when we experience a sensation, such as an afterimage, and when we report that sensation to someone who is not/cannot be experiencing it what we are reporting to them is that our brain is in a particular state.

However, this is not to say that the brain state is the afterimage. It is merely saying what it is to experience the afterimage, is the combination of neurons that is occurring in our brain.

Smart makes this claim not to explain our qualia through physical terms, but place the qualia purely in the realm of the physical.

He does this to argue against the objection just because we cannot nail down subjective experience that means there must be something other than physical phenomena.

Smart’s Main Hypothesis (cont.)

Smart is very clear in his thesis that he is not saying

• that sensations (X) can be pinpointed to brain process (Y), but merely that a report of sensation (X) is a report of a process, and that process happens to be a brain process.
• that statements of sensation can be translated into statements of brain processes.
• nor that the logic of a brain process statements can be translated into the logic of sensation statements.

The Nations Analogy

Smart uses the analogy of a nation to draw similarities between what he means by sensations are brain processes

• A nation is nothing over and above its citizens, even though it has a different identity
• Even though sensations and brain processes appear to be different, it does not mean one is the other.

Remarks on Identity

Smart is proposing that brain processes are sensations in the strictest sense of the word:

• ie: a general is the same as a little kid that stoke the apples means that the general is the same 4D time slice as the little child is a 4D time slice of the same person from the past
• he does not mean that somehow one is simply spatially or temporally continuous with another, but one is the other…

Objections + Smart’s Reply

Objection One (Bridge of Understanding)

1. One can know about one (describe their sensations) without knowing anything about neurophysiology therefore they can not be the same thing.

Smart’s Reply: Morning/Evening Star

1. Smart’s reply is that there can be statements of the form “A is identical with B”, where the person knows something is A but not B.

• He uses the example that someone can talk about lightning without knowing anything about electricity
• Or the example of how early rising Englishmen, and slug abed New Zealanders can both call something the “Morning Star” and “Evening Star” respectively, with both these things being the same thing whilst both are ignorant of that fact.

Objection Two

1. Objection Two is the objection that sensory experience is only contingent (could be true or false) on brain processes. We can not be certain that brain processes are sensory experiences because potentially our neuroscience could be wrong.

Smart’s Reply

1. Smart’s reply is that the objection does not show that when we report (having an after-image) it is not in fact a brain process. It only shows that when we say “I have an after image” we cannot mean something of the form “I have such and such a brain process”.
2. He refers to the Fido theory of meaning. If the identity of something were what it named then the fact that “sensations” and “brain process” have different meanings that they cannot name one and the same thing.

Objection Three

1. When we talk about qualia there are certainly subjective properties to our experience (for ie. the experience of color). These properties seemingly lie outside of the physicalist framework therefore sensations cannot be brain processes.

Smart’s Reply

1. His reply is simply that properties of objects (the experience of seeing yellow) still lie within the physical realm (eg: the concept of color is merely the ability to distinguish objects apart from each other).
2. Smart is not proposing that sensations and brain processes have the same logic.
3. Defines properties of experience: When someone is reporting that they are seeing something (ie. a yellow afterimage) they are merely saying that I am seeing something which is of the sort of the images I would see if these conditions would apply (I am awake, my eyes are open, and the yellow is like the color of a banana)
4. The logic of sensations is metaphysically neutral (not presupposing a materialistic or dualistic sense because of how he defines properties of experience are above).
5. Therefore this objection does not disapprove of the claim that sensations are merely brain processes.
6. However Smart does acknowledge that his claim is based on the abstraction of to the extent someone is able to say X is Y, without knowing how they relate to each other.

Objection Four

1. The after-image is not in physical space. The brain-process is. So the after image is not a brain process.

Smart’s Reply

1. Smart’s reply is simple. He calls this objection an ignoratio elenchi. He is saying that the experience of seeing the after-image is a brain process, not that the after-image is a brain process.

Definition: ignoratio elenchi

• a logical fallacy which consists in apparently refuting an opponent while actually disproving something not asserted

Objection Five

1. The description we would use for brain processes (fast, slow) are different from those we use to explain sensations.

Smart’s Reply

1. He is not saying the properties or logic of these two brain processes, and sensations are the same
2. He uses the example of “somebody” and “doctor”. These two expressions have different logics and properties but it does not mean that they are not the same

3. Great summary of all objections and replies:

• When someone is talking about their experience (that something is going on), they leave open as to what sort of thing is going on whether it is a material solid medium, or a dualistic medium. Smart is simply saying that the medium is material based on the best evidence.

Objection Six

1. Sensations are private, brain processes are public. One can be wrong about brain processes but not sensations (if they aren’t lying). Moreover, multiple people can observe a brain process, but it makes no sense for multiple people to observe a sensation.

Smart’s Reply

1. This simply shows that the language of introspective reports has a different logic from the language of material processes. But that does not mean they aren’t the same.

2. When we are sophisticated enough there could be potential to say look at a brain process and say someone is having such and such experience, other than introspective reports.

Objection Seven

1. I can imagine myself turned to stone and yet having images, aches, pains, and so on.
2. If sensations are brain stuff are just physical

Smart’s Reply

1. Smart states that imaginative power isn’t valuable in determining if X is Y.
2. This is a knock against Descartes's argument for dualism (that one can see a distinction of two things means they must be separate) in Descartes's physical and brain stuff.
3. Smart is simply saying that he is switching the dualist conception of ghost stuff by just saying it's brain stuff.
4. An indivisible atom is “made of” stuff, that being itself.

Objection Eight

1. Beetle in the box objection (Wittgenstein)

• if everyone had a beetle in a box, and could only look at their box. How does one know that we are all referring to the same thing? There could be nothing in the box or something different for every person.
• This objection is different from the others as it is not arguing that sensations are not brain processes. But more than the language we use (ie the word pain) refers to this public definition of the word and is not truly representative of what ‘pain’ is to each person. This is because we can never be certain that my pain, is the same pain that you feel.
• This objection does not say there is no such thing as sensations, but merely language doesn’t track sensations but merely their own utility and other words.

Objection 8.

1. Smart counters this objection by saying that the individual is merely switching frames when they are talking about sensations. Going from a ‘there is a pain’ to which imply the phrase ‘it feels to me to be painful’. Switching from terms that deal with the environment around us, to the private experience of our senses.
2. He goes on to consider the question of what is the difference between brain states that cause experiences, and ones that don’t end with the conclusion is that at our present state we don’t know
3. Smart really doesn’t tackle the beetle in the box objection, as it seems not to really be an objection to his hypothesis at all.

Epiphenomenalism VS Materialism

definition: epiphenomenalism

• there are psychical things, but it cannot affect the physical. Only the physical can affect it.
• physical causes you fear (mental state), but fear doesn’t cause you to run away only the physical reaction does

Smart makes the claim that there are two things he is trying to claim,

1. the empirical view that mind-stuff occurs in the brain, not the liver or the heart… (which is purely scientific
2. but more important the non-empirical claim between epiphenomenalism and materialism

Phillip Gosse

Smart uses the example of Phillip Gosse to explain why the epiphenomenalism seems like an inaccurate explanation of the mind-body problem

• Phillip Gosse makes the argument that the world was made in 4004BC but all the anthropological evidence that date the Earth much earlier also came into existence in 4004BC
• Smart argues that even though this explanation agrees with all the facts, it could never be accepted by scientist because it offends the principles of parsimony and simplicity

Conclusion

• As there are no cogent philosophical arguments that force us into accepting dualism, and if the brain process theory and dualism are equally consistent with the facts
• then by virtue parsimony and simplicity seem to overwhelmingly be in favor of the brain-process theory.
• Smart thinks that dualism involves too many irreducible nomological danglers, that to have to be taken on trust that it would serve to be a poor theory similar to Phillip Gosse’s

P.S: Couldn’t find this in the reading but someone else’s notes contained them (good read but not necessary).

P-Zombies

A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that from the outside is indistinguishable from a normal human being but lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie was poked with a sharp object it would not feel any pain sensation yet could behave exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say “ouch”, recoil from the stimulus, and say that it is feeling pain).

Some philosophers, such as David Chalmers, argue that since a zombie is defined as physiologically indistinguishable from human beings, even its logical possibility would be a sound refutation of physicalism, as it would establish that the existence of conscious experience is a further fact. However, physicalists like Daniel Dennett counter that Chalmers’s physiological zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible.

Smart concedes that philosophical zombies (or p-zombies) could possibly exist, however, he highlights that the appearance of experience had by the p-zombie is not the same as the actual experience of a person and that this can explain the absence of brain processes — thus, these zombies are merely imitating the human experience.

He also rambles a little about an a priori critique which merely means that Smart has a problem with the idea that the question of sensation experience might be solved without the use of experiential data (a priori meaning prior to experience). As such, Smart’s position is impervious to an a priori criticism because the very nature of his argument is experiential (a posteriori).