Identity Theory Essay

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Melvin Snoh Intro to Phil Professor Wetzel April 6, 14 Prompt 1 The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain thus particular psychological states are identical with particular type of physical state. Many objections have been lay out by philosophers who have evaluated this theory one objection that is particularly strong is the Martian and octopus criticism which state that if identity theory is true, than these species should not feel pain, but if they do feel pain than identity theory is not true. Pain according to identity theorist is psychological states that can be reduced to a brain state or physical state. When a human says he or she is experiencing pain according to identity theorist they are experiencing c fibers in their body. If pain is experiencing c fibers in your body then according to Identity theorist an Octopus and a Martian can not experience pain because the make up of their brains are different from a human brain, but that can not be true. Just because your brain is different from my brain does not mean you can not feel the same stuff that I feel. Thus when we think about the human mind in relation to the body we should think about what is the relationship between psychological state and physical state that realizes it. Alien and Octopus pains are identical with the brain state too a brain state that is totally different than the human brain state. When we say this we have to qualify the type of identity we are using, we are saying that pain and other psychological states are identical with particular state of the body, but the state of the body that they identical with can vary from species to species such as human to a Martian, Mar... ... middle of paper ... ...ction is similar to those of a human to move or jerk away from something that is to hot. So if you see the same type of behavior in an octopus and Martian such as shrinking and jerking or jerking away that would suggest that the octopus and Martian can also experience pain because it is in a state that is functioning exactly as human pain. In Conclusion the identity theory state that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain can not be true because in the example of a Martian and Octopus we see that it is possible for other species to experience pain even though the make up of their brains might be different than ours we know this because when we examining their behavior and how this react to certain things that causes pain they manner in which they reacted to those things is similar to the manner in which human would react

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