Choose 2 exam questions from section 1 of the questions list for the exam.
Please (you must!) include the question text in your discussion post!
Each Question must be 200 words.
Section 1:
1. Explain the Mind-Body Problem in terms of either the old school and/or new school perspective. From
which side do you see the problem (or both)? Why?
2. Explain why the problem of other minds (POOM) is a problem for Cartesian Dualism. (Why does CD
lead to the POOM?).
3. Suppose that, as Descartes claimed, the mind is indivisible. Would that lend credibility to the theory
of Cartesian Dualism? Why or why not?
4. Is Cartesian Dualism consistent with modern science? Why or why not?
5. Using the “Heaven Without Bodies” Thought Probe, explain what is wrong with Descartes’s
conceivability argument.
6. In a letter to John Adams dated August 15, 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “To talk of immaterial
existences is to talk of nothings. To say the human soul, angels, god are immaterial is to say they are
nothings or that there is no god, no angels, no soul.” Jefferson says to talk of immaterial objects is to talk
of nothings. Do you agree? Why or why not?
7. Explain Gilbert Ryle’s category mistake thought experiment against substance (cartesian) dualism.
8. Using either the reasons/reasoning from Empiricism, explain why Logical Behaviorism is appealing.
9. What does the perfect pretender (or Putnam’s Super-Spartans) thought experiment show about
behavioral dispositions?
10. What reasons do we have to subscribe/accept to Identity Theory?
11. Explain how Nagel’s bat thought experiment attempts to undermine identity theory.
12. Explain the significance of the fact that brain states are knowable by empirical investigation but
mental states are not.
13. What does Lewis’s pained Martian (or Hilary Putnam’s conscious computer) thought experiment
show about the identity theory?
14. What does Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment show?
15. Is being in a certain functional state a necessary or sufficient condition for being in a certain mental
state? Why or why not?
16. Suppose that a robot was created whose behavior was indistinguishable from that of a normal
human being. Should such a robot be given the same rights as a human being? Why or why not?
17. Suppose that an autopsy was performed on an alien found in a crashed flying saucer, and suppose
that none of its internal organs resembled a brain. Would that show that it isn’t intelligent? Why or why
not?
18. What is Lewis’s pained madman thought experiment? What is it meant to show?
19. Consider the various replies to Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment. Which do you think is the
most plausible? Why?
20. Psychologist Stevan Harnad has proposed the Total Turing Test for artificial intelligence. To pass this
test, the computer being tested would have to be able to do everything that a normal human being
does, including walking, riding a bicycle, swimming, dancing, playing a musical instrument, and so on.
Only a computer with a robot body could do that. Is passing the Total Turing Test either necessary or
sufficient for being intelligent and thus having a mind? Why or why not?
21. It is possible to make a fully functional computer out of sticks, stones, and toilet paper. If such a
computer ran your program, would it be you? Why or why not?
22. What does Searle’s thought experiment about Chevrolet station wagons show?
23. What is the point of Jackson’s thought experiment about the color-challenged scientist?
24. Is it possible to provide a complete account of the world in purely physical terms? Why or why not?
25. Is folk psychology an inadequate psychological theory? Why or why not?
26. Can we eliminate all references to mental states from a scientific account of the world? Why or why
not?
27. Is property dualism a more adequate theory of the mind than eliminative materialism or the
reductive theories? Why or why not?
28. Could a being with no conscious experience—a zombie—do everything that we can do?
29. Could the Milky Way galaxy be the brain of an intelligent creature? Is the claim that it is the brain of
an intelligent creature a plausible one? Why or why not?
30. Do placebos or nocebos provide a good reason for believing in downward causation? Can the
evidence be explained without postulating downward causation? If so, how?
