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physical state
Also known as: physical state, physical states
Facts (34)
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Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness cambridge.org Dec 20, 2023 12 facts
claimThe zombie argument posits that if consciousness is constituted by a physical state, it should be metaphysically impossible for that physical state to exist without consciousness; however, because it is conceivable for the physical state to exist without consciousness, the argument concludes that physicalism is false.
claimWilliam James questioned why specific conscious states, such as pain and pleasure, evolved as by-products of specific physical states rather than others, such as why pain evolved with harmful processes like burning and pleasure with beneficial processes like eating.
claimOverdetermination dualism is compatible with physical causal closure, similar to epiphenomenalism, but differs by allowing mental states to affect physical states.
perspectiveMost philosophers find overdetermination dualism implausible because it is inexplicable why conscious states would systematically and without exception cause the exact same effects as the physical states they are correlated with, as there is no reason to expect psychophysical laws to mirror physical laws in this way.
claimThe explanatory argument posits that one cannot simply assume that conscious states are constituted by physical states; it must be demonstrated that they are.
claimEpiphenomenalism suggests that pain has no causal effects on behavior, implying that switching the correlations between pain/pleasure and physical states would not impact natural selection.
claimOverdetermination dualism posits that psychophysical laws operate in both directions: physical states produce conscious states, and conscious states produce physical effects such as behavior.
claimEpiphenomenalism faces a challenge regarding why phenomenal experiences, such as pain or the experience of seeing red, are by-products of specific physical states that cause corresponding behaviors, such as avoidance or verbal reports, rather than arbitrary behaviors.
perspectiveEpiphenomenalists argue that non-epiphenomenalist theories, such as physicalism and interactionism, face the same improbability issues as epiphenomenalism because they must posit specific two-way psychophysical laws or identity relations to explain correlations between physical and mental states.
claimChalmers and McQueen propose that conscious states cause the collapse of physical states in the brain, and these states do not necessarily have to be measurements.
referenceBrian Cutter and Dustin Crummett discuss correlations between phenomenal experiences and physical states, referring to these instances as 'psychophysical harmony' in their forthcoming work.
claimPhysicalism must posit specific psychophysical constitution relations where pain is constituted by avoidance-causing physical states and pleasure is constituted by attraction-causing physical states to explain fitting correlations between conscious states and physical behavior.
Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2016 Edition) plato.stanford.edu Aug 19, 2003 7 facts
claimA mental predicate is considered reducible only if there are bridging laws connecting types of psychological states to types of physical states, such that the mental predicate provides no information that cannot be expressed by the physical predicate.
perspectiveIdealist views assert that physical states are actually mental, because the physical world is an empirical world and an intersubjective product of collective experience.
claimThe zombie hypothesis claims that it is imaginable and possible for a body to exist without any associated conscious states, which would show that conscious states are something over and above physical states.
perspectiveMaterialist views assert that mental states are simply physical states, despite appearances to the contrary.
claimThe causal question within the mind-body problem asks whether physical states influence mental states, whether mental states influence physical states, and the mechanisms by which these influences occur.
claimThe mind-body problem is defined as the set of questions concerning the relationship between mental states and physical states.
claimThe ontological question within the mind-body problem asks whether mental states and physical states are distinct, or if one class is a subclass of the other.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 5 facts
claimIn his 1974 paper 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?', philosopher Thomas Nagel argued that experiences are essentially subjective and accessible only to the individual undergoing them, whereas physical states are essentially objective and accessible to multiple individuals.
claimThomas Nagel argued that because experiences are subjective and physical states are objective, it is unclear what it means to claim that a felt state is identical to a functional state, making the concept of reductivism difficult to understand.
claimJoseph Levine proposes a thought experiment involving an alien species that lacks c-fibers to demonstrate that the absence of a specific physical state (c-fiber firing) does not logically entail the absence of a conscious state (pain), leaving the question of whether the aliens feel pain open.
claimJoseph Levine uses the example of pain and its reduction to the firing of c-fibers to illustrate the difficulty of mapping conscious states to physical states, noting that in other scientific fields like chemistry and physics, connections between levels of description are necessary rather than contingent.
claimJoseph Levine disputes that conscious states are reducible to neuronal or brain states, arguing that the bridges between conscious states and physical states are contingent rather than necessary.
Non-Reductive Physicalism - Theories of Consciousness theoriesofconsciousness.com 2 facts
claimNon-reductive physicalism occupies a middle ground between reductive physicalism, which claims mental states are identical to physical states, and dualism, which posits mental substances separate from physical reality.
claimDownward causation is the theory that mental states can causally influence physical states without violating physical laws.
Dualism, Physicalism, and Philosophy of Mind - Capturing Christianity capturingchristianity.com Dec 11, 2019 1 fact
claimProperty dualism claims that at least some mental states are not reducible to physical states, meaning conscious beings instantiate two radically different kinds of properties—mental and physical—neither of which is reducible to the other.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness plato.stanford.edu Nov 30, 2004 1 fact
claimEugene Wigner proposed in 1967 that consciousness impacts the physical state of a measured system, extending the idea beyond a mere impact on observer knowledge.
Unknown source 1 fact
claimThe hard problem of consciousness is defined as the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Springer Nature Link link.springer.com 1 fact
accountOccasionalism and parallelistic views, such as those proposed by Leibniz or Spinoza, utilized a Divine principle to explain the correlation between mental and physical states to avoid the need for a naturalistic explanation.
Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 18, 2017 1 fact
claimPhysicalism posits that consciousness states are physical states, and therefore they are part of the causally closed physical system.
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2025 ... plato.stanford.edu Jun 18, 2004 1 fact
claimFunctionalists often use analogies between inter-level relations, such as the relationship between biological and biochemical properties or chemical and atomic properties, to explain how physical states realize conscious mental types.
Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness - David Chalmers consc.net 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers posits that the concept of information may provide a framework for progress in consciousness studies because it captures a formal isomorphism between conscious states and underlying physical states.
The development of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective academia.edu 1 fact
claimA single physical state acts as a bridge connecting the third-person objective ontology conjectured about a physical state to the first-person subjective ontology based on that state's experiential essence, rather than connecting a physical brain to a distinct experiential mind.