Central-State Materialism Essays - Cognitive Science,

Central-State Materialism In my readings of the two chapters from the book, Body and Mind, written by Keith Campbell, I explored my mind to Central-State Materialism and Functionalism. Both these states have differences and similarities between them. Starting off with Central-State Materialism; then, I reflected my readings, and then viewed Functionalism and stated my readings. The main point of this paper is to give a few supporting details on the similarities and differences Central-State Materialism, and a few points supporting Functionalism. The chapter on Central-State Materialism first introduces us to the Casual Theory of mind, and learning new terms such as, essentially casual and essentially effectual. This is just like a cause and effect concept, that every decision you make is a decision that you made through your mental state because of a certain effect. Our essentially effectual mental behavior is produced by an action, but our essentially casual mental behavior is made for a condition of capacity for a behavior. However we do not always use a capacity for a behavior, but the thought always arises. Central-State Materialism evolved from the man known as Armstrong, but a man by the name of Place was the first to get an Identity Theory out in the open. Campbell tells us, the Casual Theory of mind is coherent to Behaviorism, and these states show the disposing of men to certain forms of their behavior(79). For example, a mans actions are based upon his inner states and that causes him to act differently in particular situations. As the Casual Theory says that all of the mental states of mind causes a person to seek one path rather than seeking another throughout his life. In Central-State Materialism the Casual Theory of the mind has two strands that many mental events and processes are yet factual causes of parts of behavior that belong to different patterns. Thus mental causes get their name from the different behavior patterns of the mind. The mental states in the first strand of the Casual Theory of mind under Central-State Materialism is casually producing a desired effect or an influence in the behavior. Campbell clarifies that doing this will avoid a major problem of Behaviorism. The first strand acknowledges that the mind is an inner, separate, and standing behind behavior (80). Campbell directly states the second strand of the Casual Theory of the mind says mental terms get meaning by reference to behavioral effects of the mental states they denote. But the difference between the first and second strands are that one tries to shun away a problem frm Behaviorism to occur, and the other preserves the truth of Behaviorism (81). In the Casual Theory of mind corresponding to Central State Materialism shows that Behaviorism has a connection of mind with behavior, but they may not be referring to the same ideas. In the Casual Theory of mind we place positivism under meaningful conditions, which are given that bodily movements are perceptible and they lead to the Behaviorism of minds using some of our sense organs. Descartes' view of the Mind is stating that it is all on the inside, and that our minds are a private thing. The Identity Theory says and identifies that types of mental states correspond with types of physical states, but this is only true in some cases of Central-State Materialism. This is saying that for example the type-type Identity Theory, all types of pain are physical types just like everyone else, and takes response to the mental being of your brain. This renders that no alien, no non-human brain, otherwise known as an animal, no artificial brain like computers could feel pain because none of them have human like brain states. We have what are known as stimuli and their responses to our behavior, and these stimuli come from the experiences we gather over time. The central nervous system plays an important role in this mental state because without this system we could not find what our behavior is intending on doing for us. Many Casual Theorist which are also know as Dualist describes mental life as inner states of causes in bodily actions. The events and processes are mainly the effect of behavior, the central nervous system is this because of our behavior reacting to the system this is also in the same way to Functionalism. "Central-State Materialism is thus the most uncompromisingly economical version of the Casual Theory of mind." (Campbell 87). In Behaviorism the only defense is that Central-State Materialism is with the mind, not with the Mind-Body problem. In Central-State