Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2010 - (Page 14)

Zombies, Robots, and descaRtes: “ It was zombie day in my Philosophy of the Mind course at CTY. After having discussed the philosophical concept of zombies (wearing appropriately morbid attire), we were constructing and playing a philosophy-based board game. Outside the classroom, two of our classmates completed their installment of a podcast we had been researching, scripting, and recording for the past week. Not only had we learned about questions that had baffled some of the world’s greatest minds for centuries, but now we were also beginning to analyze them and present our own views in creative ways. I had signed up for this philosophy course in hopes that it might provide me with a little insight into my own life, a perception that was very quickly countered by an intoxicating whirlwind of contradictory treatises. After only a day of orientation, we submerged ourselves deep within a world of speculation and logic. Our instructor addressed each topic with a level of intensity and quirkiness I had never associated with philosophy. Where I had attempted to find meaning, I instead found a state of informed confusion—which I reveled in. ail to solve the mind-body problem, move back three spaces.” Tom dropped the game card in frustration and moved his zombie token backwards on the game board, his discouraged frown transformed into a comical grimace by the zombie makeup plastered across his face. of his mind. Drawing from this revelation, he proposed that the world was divided into two fundamentally different substances, bodies and minds. Bodies, he posited, were extended things—they took up space—while minds were thinking things. Descartes considered these attributes, thought and extension, to be mutually exclusive. This school of thought is called dualism. Since Descartes, numerous different dualist theories have emerged, attempting to answer the troublesome question of how two substances of completely distinct and separate natures could be able to interact. Every evening we would take out our textbooks and read an essay presenting a new philosophical argument, and every morning we would discuss its implications and weaknesses. The reading could be tedious. With titles like “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction” and “The Problem of Psychophysical Causation,” these were not exactly Reader’s Digest articles. Once you got past the jargon, though, the content was fascinating, and every once in a while you might even find an argument written like a story. The first topic we discussed involved the nature of the mind. In addition to the aforementioned dualist theories, there is an opposing school of thought called monism, which essentially states that there is only one type of substance that makes up the universe, although it is hotly debated which substance this is. The materialist perspective claims that our universe is entirely physical, and that our minds are our brains. The idealist perspective claims that there is no physical world, and that all things we perceive are essentially bundles of experience. Solipsists go even further, claiming that the only mind in existence is their own. Bodies and/or Minds? The course opened with a reading from Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, one of the earliest and most influential writings in philosophy of mind. It was here that Descartes penned the phrase famously translated into Latin as cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Through a roundabout thought experiment in which he called into doubt everything that he believed to be true, Descartes encountered only a single truth that he could be absolutely sure of: the existence 14 imagine Mar/Apr 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2010

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2010
Contents
Editor’s Note
Big Questions
In My Own Words
Why Study Philosophy?
The Great Conversation
Robots, Zombies, and Descartes
The Wide World of Philosophy
The Philosopher’s Toolbox
Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and The Experience Machine
Harry Potter and Plato
Exploring Ethics (or, Why I Give Up Saturdays in Spring)
How to Start a Philosophy Club
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Middle Ground
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Creative Minds Imagine
Sudoku
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - March/April 2010