6. Eliminative Materialism

6. What is eliminative materialism? Please elaborate.

    Eliminative Materialism is very difficult to define because way it contrasts with other theories. It is basically a specialized form of the identity theory; its main difference being that intentional states do no exist. This means that an eliminativist believes that there are no beliefs or desires and desires to tell us this. At first glance this theory seems totally useless, denying the existence of beliefs and desires?  Maybe so, but before making any such conclusions, we should take look at why. When Eliminative Materialists were trying to come up with a theory of mind, they thought back to other times when people tried to explain phenomena and how some of those attempts failed miserably. For example, at one stage, people thought that heat was some kind of a fluid, called caloric fluid, and when something got hotter it simply had obtained some more of this fluid. At the time this sounded like a good idea, so scientists set out to prove it, but discovered that heat was not a fluid but just molecular motion inside the substance itself. What if beliefs and desires are the same? What if our beliefs and desires are just made up entities, like caloric fluid, to help fit our theory? If they are just made up entities essential to intentional systems theory and folk psychology, maybe we shouldn’t use them in our theory at all. Just because they are important parts of the main theories doesn’t mean you have to try to include it in your theory. In the light of this, the eliminativist say we shouldn’t try to explain beliefs and desires, because they could be wrong. Instead let’s focus on things such as pain and other observable states, and then find whatever it is that causes those behaviors we explain in terms of beliefs, desires, and rationality. An eliminativist wouldn't have to say you can’t talk about belief and desires. An Eliminativist might say that you can talk of beliefs and desires but they aren’t really what are happening. Inside your brain, there is no state exemplifying a belief or desire. For example, they can’t say, ”oh look this part of his brain is active he must have a belief”, or “look he must desire a beer”. These types of brain states in eliminative materialism don’t exist. They say we must instead look for what it is that does the job that we explain in these terms. So to rephrase, “Eliminative Materialists believe that there are no brain states that exemplify Beliefs or Desires."

    While eliminativists say that beliefs and desires are made up entities designed for folk psychology, others would classify them as a directly inferred concept and therefore an essential part of a theory of the mind. The main difference is whether beliefs are like heat or caloric fluid. If beliefs are like heat, then they will always exist, even if our concept of them somehow changes. Although heat was once considered caloric fluid, the basic idea that there was something that made things hot or cold still remains. However if heat is like caloric fluid, a specific idea that was thought to be heat, then it is quite likely to be in need of a replacement. Identity theorists have used this exact argument saying that in history, only when fitted with an exact physical value does the concept fall down. If heat is caloric fluid, then heat doesn’t exist. But if heat is something bigger and above, caloric fluid was merely a possible interpretation. Later, the new grand theory of heat was unveiled although radically different to the average person’s mental image of heat, molecular motion is now considered to ‘be’ heat. This process is called inter theoretical reduction. The new theory turns out to be the incarnation of an older one. As Churchland says in "Matter and Consciousness" about, “That is, they are cases where a new and very powerful theory turns out to entail a set of propositions and principles that mirror perfectly or almost perfectly the propositions of and older theory or conceptual framework,” So which type is a belief? A definite yet vague concept that is waiting for a scientific description and proof, or some idea that was made up to assist another theory. If belief is an adaptive concept willing to accept whatever definition science gives, then beliefs are going to stay. On the other hand, if beliefs are wrong, something that appears to be, but is not, then concept of a belief will only exist as a way of speaking. Identity theory is in many ways similar, it says that mental states, including beliefs and desires, are simply brain states. So in theory, we should be able to find a brain state that could be described as a “belief state”. Eliminative Materialists deny such at thing exists.