Section 1
Mental states like sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) have a tripartite essence (Nagel 1998): phenomenological, physical and functional.
The so-called "behavioral trinity" of brain, body, world of authors such as Clark (1996) and Edelman et al. (2011). Which seems conspicuously better characterized as follow: mind, central nervous system, world. The mind is embodied and embedded in the world.
The phenomenological, physical and chemical characteristics imply the functional characteristics (and the phenomenological and physical characteristics imply one another) but the functional characteristics do not imply the phenomenological, physical and chemical characteristics.
For example, in contrast to the physical, chemical and functional characteristics of consciousness, the so-called hard problem of consciousness is the phenomenological characteristics of sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes, see below p. 7): there can be a functionally equivalent mental state of pain in a mechanism with a different internal constitution of organisms like humans; but if this state is also physically, chemically and phenomenologically different from what occurs in organisms like humans, then the mental state is not the same and is not pain.
Suppose that I believe that Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and suppose that you believes that Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. Assuming that I and you only have the same belief if the configuration of our nerve cells is the same (if we are exactly in the same type of neurophysical state), it seems unnecessary.
However, it does seems necessary to assume that I and you only have the same sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) if the configuration of our nerve cells is the same (if we are exactly in the same type of neurophysical state).
Notwithstanding, to assume that I and you only have the same sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) if the configuration of our nerve cells is the same (if we are exactly in the same type of neurophysical state), is to be deceived by the essential functional characteristics (implied by the physical and chemical characteristics) of sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes), because sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) also have essential phenomenological characteristics (that with physical characteristics imply functional characteristics): the phenomenological, physical and chemical characteristics imply one another but the functional characteristics do not imply the phenomenological, physical and chemical characteristics. For example, tokens of pain are all tokens of the same type of mental state, pain, but may exemplify different types of neurophysical state.
This category of mental states includes, for example, not only painful sensations, taste experiences and visual experiences, but also auditory experiences like the event that is to hear a certain symphony, olfactory experiences like the event that is to smell a certain flower, tactile experiences like the event in which you touch a certain object.
However, the essence of cognitive mental states like beliefs (about chocolate or cars), desires (of chocolate or cars) and intentions (to eat a chocolate or to drive a car) - the so-called propositional attitudes - is not tripartite.
Essential to the category of cognitive mental states is that they are intentional, without this mark, the intentionality, they would not be the mental states that in fact they are: beliefs (about chocolate or cars), desires (of chocolate or cars) and intentions (to eat chocolate or drive a car) are intentional mental states (about chocolates or cars).
Pains are not intentional mental states in the same sense that cognitive mental states like beliefs, desires and intentions are intentional: there is nothing in sensations than being felt. We have a pain and then get there and look for her to talk about our pain this is already our cognition to work, but this cognitive way of proceeding does not make our sensation an intentional mental state just as when we cogitate about our pain.
Cognitive mental states are intentional, but pains are another thing: what is essential is how they feel, is their sensation and their experience - without sensation and experience pains would not be the mental states that in fact they are.
At all, mental states such as pain are not about whatever, they are not intentional - they not represent anything. Although we can represent pains cognitively in some way that is not pains to be about something, it is us talking about pains: pains are not cognitions, they are sensations.
The phenomenology of pain is a necessary property (because essential, see for example Fine 1994) of pains but not a sufficient property of pains. The contrast is with representational theories of mind such as Tye (2000, 63; cf. 1995, 137), according to which the phenomenological character of pains is the representational content that pains arguably have: the phenomenology of pain is a necessary and sufficient representational property of pains.
However, the phenomenology of pain be a necessary but not a sufficient property of pains does not make pains an intentional mental state just as cognitive states are intentional.
Enjoin a sunset or being frightened by something are mental states with sensory and propositional aspects, they can be identified either by the phenomenology they involved either by the propositions related to them. In any case, the proposed discrimination between sensations and propositional attitudes is not affected and this way to divide the mental retains all its usefulness.
As the possibility of sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) with propositional content is not contrary to the propositional discrimination of attitudes (have propositional content is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a mental state be a propositional attitude), also the possibility of attitudes with phenomenological elements is not contrary to the phenomenological discrimination of sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) (have a certain phenomenology is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a mental state be a sensation and an experience).
It is impossible a pain not to be felt as pain and it is impossible that something indeed felt as pain not to be a pain.
What is characteristic of pain is their feeling. Pain is the sensation itself. In any possible world, there is only one way to identify something as pain, namely through their sensation: nothing (pace Tye) in the essence of pain requires that pain be an intentional mental state.
Sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) seem to be simpler and more primitive than propositional attitudes: they, sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) are present in animals incapable of any attitude toward what may be any proposition and those animals (if any) capable of such an attitude, propositional attitudes, the sensation precedes the thought about things (for example, babies feel things before they start to think about them).
They, sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes), seem to belong to a more primitive stage of evolution and individual development, propositional attitudes to a stage imposed upon them.
The sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) are pre-rational in the sense that their presence is not enough to qualify a creature as rational agent: when we attribute cognitive mental states to a creature, we rationalize what the creature do, but when we attribute sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) we are not to rationalize anything that the creature does.
There is nothing like the propositional content to relate sensations and experiences (and mental states like the phenomenological elements of attitudes) as there is propositional content to relate mental states like beliefs, desires and intentions.
Mental states like pains and mental states like beliefs still contrast in that the property of being a conscious mental state is intrinsic to the firsts, pains; but not to the seconds, beliefs.
We cannot conceive pain as an unconscious mental state (even if consciousness is an extrinsic property contingently exemplified by pain), but it is not intrinsic to a belief that it is a conscious belief. This is because having a pain is feeling pain and feeling pain is to be consciousness of it.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope to publish the remaining posts on the sixth day after the previous post (one post every sixth day, more or less).