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Imagine that your best friend was in a car accident. She was briefly unconscious and woke up in the hospital, where she still is. She’s told you that she has been feeling fine for the last couple of days, but they have kept her in for tests. While in the hospital visiting her, you have heard rumours of a patient who has no organic brain, but otherwise seems to be completely normal. Then you overhear the following conversation.
Doctor #1: I’ve thought about this a lot. I believe the patient does not have mental states, since I believe she does not have an immaterial soul. Only creatures with souls are creatures with mental states.
Doctor #2: I don’t think that an immaterial soul, whatever exactly that is, is required for mental states, plus I don’t see how you could tell whether the patient has such a soul or not. What is relevant is that she behaved normally prior to the accident and is behaving normally now. What’s inside the patient’s skull apparently has the same causal capacities as a normal human brain. So, clearly, the patient has mental states.
Doctor #3: Well, I agree with your conclusion, Dr #1, but not with your reasoning. While it is interesting that the patient had attracted so little attention prior to the accident, what is relevant is that we [the doctors involved in this case] know more than people who did not look inside her skull. Since the patient does not have a normal organic brain, but instead has a non-organic digital computer playing that role, the patient does not have mental states.
Just then, the doctors notice that you are listening; they stop talking.
Your main task is to answer this question and to present an argument that supports your answer. Think of that as your first step. But you must also consider the position of each doctor and respond to it or expand upon it, depending on the stance you take. This means that you will, in effect, be addressing an objection to your view, since the doctors do not all agree. Which of their positions you spend the most time on will depend on what you think. Also, you may flesh out what you take to be their positions, provided your expanded version is consistent with that they’ve said above.
Also, you do not need to agree with any of the doctors arguments, though you must, of course, think that the conclusion of at least one of them is more reasonable than its negation.
You will likely find your views developing and perhaps changing as we go through the course material in the last part of the term. That’s fine you are not committed to maintaining the position you take in the first version, and I fully expect that you will have more to say about some issues in the revision.
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