Philosophy Final Essay Set

SET 1
I
1. What is intentionality and why does neuroscience face a challenge in explaining how it is possible? (Note neuroscience is the scientific study of the brain as a chunk of matter. It does not have much to do with strong AI.)
2. Why does Jackson’s thought experiment about Mary the color scientist commit him to epiphenomenalism?
3. Nagel tells us that an organism has consciousness just in case “there is something that there is like to be that organism.” Is this a good definition of consciousness? If yes, tell us why and how it captures the right/essential things about consciousness. If no, tell us why the definition tells us too little, or assumes too much (or both!). Finally, discuss why Nagel cannot offer an operational definition for consciousness.

SET 2
II
4. Suppose you and everyone else (including scientists) could crawl into the brain of a bat and see everything that is going on there (i.e. see the synapses firing, blood pumping, hormones travelling etc.) How would this impact (if at all) Nagel's anti-physicalist argument in "What is it like to be a Bat?"
5. Nagel does not deny that physicalism is true. Rather he says we don’t even know what it means for physicalism to be true. Explain and defend or criticize Nagel’s claim.
6. Defend or criticize: The right answer to the problem of personal identity is that there is no such thing as a numerally identical person over time, it is a fiction useful for moral, social and political reasons.

SET 3
III
7. Can one be a physicalist and a theist? That is, are the two theories logically compatible? If so, is the evidence for one at the same time evidence against the other?
8. In the first night of “A dialogue on personal identity and immortality” Perry advances epistemological arguments with metaphysical conclusions. (We encountered epistemological arguments from Descartes and Swinburne for the opposite metaphysical conclusions). State one or more of these arguments and evaluate its soundness.
9. Watch the film “Being John Malkovitch,” available at Lilly Library or on line (remember pirating is a violation of intellectual property rights). Explain what is incoherent or philosophically mistaken about the theory of personal identity it employs.

THREE INDEPENDENT ESSAYS OF UP TO 750 WORDS EACH. SELECT ONE ESSAY FROM EACH SECTION OF THREE PROMPTS. ATTACHED ARE PERTINENT DOCUMENTS AND A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL PROMPT. THANKS!!