Mind Final, Spring 2020

Since we've gone online for Spring, 2020, the format of our Final Exam will be a bit different:

During the scheduled time we have for our final exam, which is Thursday, May 16 12:45-2:45, I will post a set of multiple choice questions and a set of 4-6 essay questions. You will have that 2 hour period to complete the questions and post them in your Google Doc for the course. Here is a set of terms that will be relevant from our readings and lectures:

Epiphenomenalism

Interactionism

F-Monism

D-Dualism

A-Materialism

Interactionism

Panprotopsychism

Global workspace model theory of consciousness

Multiple Drafts Model

heterophenomenology

Neural correlate of consciousness

Zombie (philosophical)

Theory of Mind (in cognitive science)

What-It's-Like Consciousness

Easy Problem

Hard Problem

The Explanatory Argument

The Conceivability Argument

The Inverted Qualia Problem

Causal Closure

Intrinsic Properties

Clout

And here is a set of sample questions that are similar to the ones that I will give you on the Final: You will want to make your answers as thorough as possible. They will be graded for comprehension, philosophical sophistication, detail, and argumentation.

1. What makes certain kinds of consciousness, like the bat's, difficult or impossible for us to access? What can we know about their conscious awareness? What can't we know? Why?

2. What are the grounds for thinking that philosophical zombies like Chalmers describes are possible? Explain. Critically evaluate this argument.

3. What are the main features of qualia on the traditional view according to Dennett? How does the Chase and Sanborn Coffee Tasters example disprove these aspects of qualia, according to Dennett? How good is this argument?

4. What does the thought experiment concerning Mary show about physicalism, according to Jackson?

5. How do the notions of logical possibility (metaphysical possibility) and conceivability play a role in anti-reductionist arguments like Nagel’s and Chalmer’s? Critically evaluate this argument method.

6. What are the reasons favoring panpsychism or pan-protopsychism, according to Chalmers? What is the view? What are the problems with this view?

7. How does Dennett's Multiple Drafts Model of Consciousness provide a philosophical counterpoint to singular, realist views of the self? What does his theory have to do with the Hard Problem and a theater analogy? How is his view an eliminativist position?

8. What does it mean, on Dennett's view, to say that neural contents that are in the global workspace have clout? What is clout and how does it differ from a Cartesian account of selves/ideas.

9. What does it mean for a neural content to become conscious on the Dehaene and Naccache analysis? How does consciousness, in the robust sense, occur, according to them? Are they eliminativists about consciousness? What is the function of consciousness? What did it evolve for?

10. Describe Prinz's theory of consciousness. Specifically, explain the major theses of the view with regard to attention. How does Prinz's view differ from Dehaene and Naccache? What argument does Prinz give to defend this difference?

11. What are the major theses of Graziano's Attention Schema Theory of Consciousness?