Talk:Philosophy of mind

Identity Theory criticisms unfounded

"Despite its initial plausibility, the identity theory faces a strong challenge in the form of the thesis of multiple realizability, first formulated by Hilary Putnam." This section has a ton of weasel words and the citations do not support the statements made. Footnote 27 is not a source that supports the sentence "identity theory faces a strong challenge in the form of the thesis of multiple realizability"; it is a reference to Hilary Putnam's paper which attempts to dispute identity theory and—by any rational account—fails. It is not a challenge at all to identity theory, let along a "strong" one. A diverse array of organisms can all feel pain and all have different brains, there's no issue with that. A proponent of Identity theory would just say that each of those experiences would be slightly different, in the same way that all humans will have slightly different experiences of pain because we ourselves don't have exactly the same physical brains. Footnote 27 is also used at the end of the sentence "The identity theory is thus empirically unfounded." Again, the linked source does not say that.

Philosophy

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states.[1][2][3] Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, the ontology of the mind, the nature of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body. 41.48.167.100 (talk) 08:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

External links

There are nine entries in the "External links". Three seems to be an acceptable number and of course, everyone has their favorite to add for four. The problem is that none is needed for article promotion.

• ELpoints #3) states: Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
• LINKFARM states: There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.
• WP:ELMIN: Minimize the number of links.

The "External links needs to be trimmed. -- Otr500 (talk) 08:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Psychology

The section on Psychology reads thusly (italics added in the "Talk" section solely for emphasis there):

"Psychology is the science that investigates mental states directly. It uses generally empirical methods to investigate concrete mental states like joy, fear or obsessions. Psychology investigates the laws that bind these mental states to each other or with inputs and outputs to the human organism.

An example of this is the psychology of perception. Scientists working in this field have discovered general principles of the perception of forms. A law of the psychology of forms says that objects that move in the same direction are perceived as related to each other. This law describes a relation between visual input and mental perceptual states. However, it does not suggest anything about the nature of perceptual states. The laws discovered by psychology are compatible with all the answers to the mind–body problem already described."

I understand that writing the section on psychology would be quite an undertaking, if not impossible to do well. Same with criticism of any attempt. In the least, I must say that the first sentence in these two paragraphs seems a very specific assertion, and the last sentence in these two paragraphs seems overly broad. I cannot reconcile the former and the latter.

Ritten Wright (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2023 (UTC)