Pain is Mechanism

In this chapter, I set the stage for the type identity theories given in Chapter Two and Chapter Three by assessing type identity theory of mind. There are five reasons to prefer type identity theory of mind to dualism: it has greater explanatory power; it is more respectful of philosophical and folk intuitions about the causal powers of qualia; it is simpler, it is supported by causal closure of the physical; and it is continuous with natural science. Using pain as the target mental state, I describe and challenge four philosophical objections to type identity theory of mind: the experience of pain is excluded; the experience of pain disappears; qualia inversion; and Saul Kripke‟s claim that type identity is false because it is possible that two individuals could have the same mental state while having different neurophysiological states.