Phi Fic

We talk with Ned about a second Blockheads (2019) article, Michael Tyle's “Homunculi Heads and Silicon Chips: The Importance of History to Phenomenology," which provides a variation off of the David Chalmers fading qualia argument, and then Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Wes continue exploring the details uncovered by our interview after Ned leaves.

Listen to part one first, or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Your So Dark Sleep/Goodbye" by The Black Watch, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #102.

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The climax and denouement of our summer philosophy of mind series: Ned Block visits to fill in the gaps about functionalism and attributing consciousness to machines and discuss essays from Blockheads (2019), focusing here on Brian McLaughlin’s “Could an Android be Sentient?”

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Please go check out Modern Day Philosophers at moderndayphilosophers.net and See You On The Other Side at othersidepodcast.com. Also, subscribe to Mark's Pretty Much Pop at prettymuchpop.com.

Continuing on Ned Block's "Troubles with Functionalism" (1978) and David Chalmers's "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia" (1995).

What would it be like to be halfway between person and machine? If you think the machine can't have consciousness, then Chalmers thinks that there's no sensible way to describe such an experience, ergo the machine (if functionally equivalent to the person) must have consciousness after all.

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Machine" by Helen Money as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #101.

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Subscribe to Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast at prettymuchpop.com.

On Ned Block's "Troubles with Functionalism" (1978) and David Chalmers's "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia" (1995).

If mental states are functional states, there couldn't be zombies. Yet Block claims that there could be zombies: for example, a functional duplicate of you whose components are actually citizens of China obeying algorithmic rules. Even if the resulting system acts like you, it obviously isn't conscious. Chalmers argues that you'd then need to explain the experiences of a creature half way between you and the zombie, but you can't, so Block's argument doesn't work and functionalism is left standing. What do you think? Do you hate weird thought experiments like these?

Don't wait for part two! Get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!

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Subscribe to Mark's new podcast at prettymuchpop.com.

Is media trying to brainwash us into being ALL THE SAME? Are the excesses of the mob scaring us into conformity? Mark, Erica, and Brian muse on cultural homogenization and are joined by comedian Dr. Yakov Smirnoff to talk about growing up in a repressive society and the shadow of political correctness over comedy.

For more about this podcast, see prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.

This podcast is curated by openculture.com and The Partially Examined Life Podcast Network.

Continuing on functionalism with David M. Armstrong’s "The Causal Theory of the Mind" (1981).

Your four hosts start afresh the day after Part One on Putnam to discuss this version of functionalism that is supposed to clear the way for the scientific identification of mental states with brain states. Mental states are defined by their causal relations with other states and with behavior, and the content of a mental state is exhausted by its intentional object, e.g. the content of a perception is the thing you're perceiving which (normally) causes the perception. So what about things like colors and sounds that aren't really out in the world? Can functionalism explain how these seem to us?

Listen to part one first or get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Pain Makes You Beautiful" by Jeff Heiskell's JudyBats, as featured on Nakedly Examined Music #5.

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Subscribe to Mark's new podcast at prettymuchpop.com.

On Hilary Putnam's "The Nature of Mental States" (1973).

What is the mind? Functionalist theories identify the mental with not with the brain exactly, but with something the brain does. So some other creature without a brain (maybe a computer) might be able to do that same thing if it could duplicate the structure of what our brains do. Is this a satisfying account of the mind?

Don't wait for part 2! Get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!

Sponsors: Visit omnifocus.com for a free trial of a great to-do list manager. Visit the St. John's College Graduate Institute: partiallyexaminedlife.com/sjcgi.

Check out our new culture/entertainment podcast, Pretty Much Pop, at prettymuchpop.com.

What is pop culture? Does it make sense to distinguish it from high culture, or can something be both?

Welcome to this new pop culture podcast hosted by Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt. This episode also features Tyler Hislop, our editor. For more, see prettymuchpop.com.

Get involved from the start at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. We'll solicit your input for our episodes, release them early for supporters, and provide bonus content with every episode; there's already some waiting for you now.

Presented by openculture.com and the Partially Examined Life podcast network.

End song: "High Rollin' Cult" written by Mark just for this release, featuring Erica. Theme music by Mark and Erica. PMP logo by Ken Gerber.

Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Wes reflect on the changing state of podcasting and public philosophy over the last decade, how our goals and interests have changed since we started we started. Why don't colleges pay their faculty to educate the public through regular, broadcasted conversations like ours? If you think we're snarky, take a look at actual philosophy faculty! Should we continue to do more literature, poetry, and other topics that are not strictly philosophy? Also, the stalled state of the PEL book.

Thanks so much to each and every Partially Examined Life listener for making it worth our time to do this!

End song: "High Rollin' Cult" by Mark Lint with Erica Spyres, celebrating a new attempt to capture the fun of the beginning of PEL: Pretty Much Pop, which you get to hear a teaser of. Listen now to the latest episodes in advance of the masses, including our interview with Yakov Smirnoff, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.

Sponsor: Visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL for a free trial of The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service.