mteb/BrightProPsychologyRetrieval huggingface dataset:
The famous  Michelson–Morley experiment

compared the source light with itself after being sent in different
directions, looking for changes in phase in a manner that could be measured
with extremely high accuracy. In this experiment, their goal was to determine
the velocity of the Earth through the aether.  [E 19]  [E 20]  The publication
of their result in 1887, the  null result 
, was the first clear demonstration that something was seriously wrong with
the aether hypothesis (Michelson's first experiment in 1881 was not entirely
conclusive). In this case the MM experiment yielded a shift of the fringing
pattern of about 0.01 of a  fringe  ,
corresponding to a small velocity. However, it was incompatible with the
expected aether wind effect due to the Earth's (seasonally varying) velocity
which would have required a shift of 0.4 of a fringe, and the error was small
enough that the value may have indeed been zero. Therefore, the  null
hypothesis  , the hypothesis that
there was no aether wind, could not be rejected. More modern experiments have
since reduced the possible value to a number very close to zero, about 10  −17
.
Self-refutation  

Some philosophers, such as  Paul Boghossian  , have attempted to show that eliminativism is in some sense 
self-refuting  , since the
theory presupposes the existence of mental phenomena. If eliminativism is
true, then eliminativists must accept an  intentional  property like  truth  , supposing
that in order to assert something one must believe it. Hence, for
eliminativism to be asserted as a thesis, the eliminativist must believe that
it is true; if so, there are beliefs, and eliminativism is false.  [15]  [51]

 Georges Rey  and  Michael Devitt
 reply to this objection by invoking 
deflationary semantic theories  that avoid analyzing  predicates
 "Predicate \(grammar\)") like "x is true" as
expressing a real property. They are instead construed as logical devices, so
that asserting that a sentence is true is just a quoted way of asserting the
sentence itself. To say "'God exists' is true" is just to say "God exists".
This way, Rey and Devitt argue, insofar as dispositional replacements of
"claims" and deflationary accounts of "true" are coherent, eliminativism is
not self-refuting.  [52]
External links  

Wikiquote has quotations related to _** Eliminative materialism
 ** _ .

* [ Bibliography on Eliminative Materialism ](http://consc.net/biblio/3.html
Criticism  

The reason naturalism cannot be pragmatic in its epistemology starts with its
metaphysics. Science tells us that we are components of the natural realm,
indeed latecomers in the 13.8-billion-year-old universe. The universe was not
organized around our needs and abilities, and what works for us is just a set
of contingent facts that could have been otherwise. Once we have begun
discovering things about the universe that work for us, science sets out to
explain why they do. It is clear that one explanation for why things work for
us that we must rule out as unilluminating, indeed question-begging, is that
they work for us because they work for us. If something works for us, enables
us to meet our needs and wants, there must be an explanation reflecting facts
about us and the world that produce the needs and the means to satisfy them.
[44]

The explanation of why scientific methods work for us must be a causal
explanation. It must show what facts about reality make the methods we employ
to acquire knowledge suitable for doing so. The explanation must show that our
methods work — for example, have reliable technological application — not by
coincidence, still less miracle or accident. That means there must be some
facts, events, processes that operate in reality and brought about our
pragmatic success. The demand that success be explained is a consequence of
science's epistemology. If the truth of such explanations consists in the fact
that they work for us (as pragmatism requires), then the explanation of why
our scientific methods work is that they work. That is not a satisfying
explanation.  [44]
The Single View
Problems with folk theories  

Eliminativists such as Paul and Patricia Churchland argue that  folk
psychology  is a fully developed but
non-formalized theory of human behavior. It is used to explain and make
predictions about human mental states and behavior. This view is often
referred to as the  theory of mind 
or just simply  theory-theory  , for it
theorizes the existence of an unacknowledged theory. As a  theory
 in the scientific sense, eliminativists maintain,
folk psychology must be evaluated on the basis of its predictive power and
explanatory success as a research program for the investigation of the
mind/brain.  [31]  [32]

Such eliminativists have developed different arguments to show that folk
psychology is a seriously mistaken theory and should be abolished. They argue
that folk psychology excludes from its purview or has traditionally been
mistaken about many important mental phenomena that can and are being examined
and explained by modern neuroscience. Some examples are  dreaming
 ,  consciousness  ,  mental disorders  ,  learning  processes, and  memory
 abilities. Furthermore, they argue, folk psychology's
development in the last 2,500 years has not been significant and it is
therefore stagnant. The  ancient Greeks  already had a folk psychology comparable to modern views. But in
contrast to this lack of development, neuroscience is rapidly progressing and,
in their view, can explain many  cognitive processes
 that folk psychology cannot.
[22]  [33]

Folk psychology retains characteristics of now obsolete theories or legends
from the past. Ancient societies tried to explain the physical mysteries of 
nature  by ascribing mental conditions to them in such
statements as "the sea is angry". Gradually, these everyday folk psychological
explanations were replaced by more efficient scientific descriptions. Today,
eliminativists argue, there is no reason not to accept an effective scientific
account of cognition. If such an explanation existed, then there would be no
need for folk-psychological explanations of behavior, and the latter would be
eliminated the same way as the  mythological  explanations the ancients used.  [34]

Another line of argument is the meta-induction based on what eliminativists
view as the disastrous historical record of folk theories in general. Ancient
pre-scientific "theories" of folk biology, folk physics, and folk cosmology
have all proven radically wrong. Eliminativists argue the same in the case of
folk psychology. There seems no logical basis, to the eliminativist, to make
an exception just because folk psychology has lasted longer and is more
intuitive or instinctively plausible than other folk theories.  [33]  Indeed,
the eliminativists warn, considerations of intuitive plausibility may be
precisely the result of the deeply entrenched nature in society of folk
psychology itself. It may be that people's beliefs and other such states are
as theory-laden as external perceptions and hence that intuitions will tend to
be biased in their favor.  [23]
The key difficulty with Fresnel's aether hypothesis arose from the
juxtaposition of the two well-established theories of Newtonian dynamics and
Maxwell's electromagnetism. Under a  Galilean transformation
 the equations of
Newtonian dynamics are  invariant  "Invariant
\(physics\)") , whereas those of electromagnetism are not. Basically this
means that while physics should remain the same in non-accelerated
experiments, light would not follow the same rules because it is travelling in
the universal "aether frame". Some effect caused by this difference should be
detectable.
*  France 
*  BnF data 
*  Germany 
*  Israel 
*  United States
Arguments against eliminativism
The luminiferous aether: it
was hypothesised that the Earth moves through a "medium" of aether that
carries light
In 1856,  Wilhelm Eduard Weber  and  Rudolf Kohlrausch 
measured the numerical value of the ratio of the electrostatic unit of charge
to the electromagnetic unit of charge. They found that the ratio between the 
electrostatic unit of charge  and the  electromagnetic unit of charge
 is the speed of light _c_ .  [7]  The following
year,  Gustav Kirchhoff  wrote a
paper in which he showed that the speed of a signal along an electric wire was
equal to the speed of light. These are the first recorded historical links
between the speed of light and electromagnetic phenomena.
References  

1. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ Ramsey, William (2016-01-01).  "Eliminative Materialism"  . In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). _The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ (Winter 2016 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
2. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ _**c** _ _**d** _ Lycan, W. G. & Pappas, G. (1972) "What is eliminative materialism?" _Australasian Journal of Philosophy_ 50: 149-59.
3. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ _**c** _ Rey, G. (1983). "A Reason for Doubting the Existence of Consciousness", in R. Davidson, G. Schwartz and D. Shapiro (eds.), _Consciousness and Self-Regulation Vol 3_ . New York, Plenum: 1-39.
4. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ _**c** _ _**d** _ _**e** _ Ramsey, William.  "Eliminative Materialism"  . _plato.stanford.edu_ . Retrieved  2022-07-08  .
5. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ _**c** _ Rorty, Richard (1970). "In Defence of Eliminative Materialism" in _The Review of Metaphysics XXIV_ . Reprinted Rosenthal, D.M. (ed.) (1971).
6. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ _**c** _ Feyerabend, P. (1963) "Mental Events and the Brain" in _Journal of Philosophy_ 40: 295-6.
7. ** ^  ** Churchland, Patricia; Churchland, Paul (1998). _On the contrary : critical essays, 1987-1997_ . MIT Press.  ISBN  "ISBN \(identifier\)")  9780262531658   .  OCLC  "OCLC \(identifier\)")  42328879  .
8. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ Anthis, Jacy (2022).  "Consciousness Semanticism: A Precise Eliminativist Theory of Consciousness"  . _Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures 2021_ . Studies in Computational Intelligence. Vol. 1032. pp. 20–41.  doi  "Doi \(identifier\)") :  10.1007/978-3-030-96993-6_3  .  ISBN  "ISBN \(identifier\)")  978-3-030-96992-9   . Retrieved  7 August  2022  .
9. ^  _**a** _ _**b** _ Ramsey, William (2022), [ "Eliminative Materialism" ](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/
##  Relative motion between the Earth and aether
Depictions  |
Einstein based his theory on Lorentz's earlier work. Instead of suggesting
that the mechanical properties of objects changed with their constant-velocity
motion through an undetectable aether, Einstein proposed to deduce the
characteristics that any successful theory must possess in order to be
consistent with the most basic and firmly established principles, independent
of the existence of a hypothetical aether. He found that the Lorentz
transformation must transcend its connection with Maxwell's equations, and
must represent the fundamental relations between the space and time
coordinates of  inertial frames of reference
 . In this
way he demonstrated that the laws of physics remained invariant as they had
with the Galilean transformation, but that light was now invariant as well.
Closely related to these distinctions is the concept of  intentionality
 . Intentionality is usually defined
as the characteristic of mental states to refer to or be about objects or
states of affairs.  [16]  [17]  The belief that the moon has a circumference
of 10921 km, for example, is a mental state that is intentional in virtue of
being about the moon and its circumference. It is sometimes held that all
mental states are intentional, i.e. that intentionality is the "mark of the
mental". This thesis is known as _intentionalism_ . But this view has various
opponents, who distinguish between intentional and non-intentional states.
Putative examples of non-intentional states include various bodily experiences
like pains and itches. Because of this association, it is sometimes held that
all sensory states lack intentionality.  [54]  [55]  But such a view ignores
that certain sensory states, like perceptions, can be intentional at the same
time.  [55]  It is usually accepted that all propositional attitudes are
intentional. But while the paradigmatic cases of intentionality are all
propositional as well, there may be some intentional attitudes that are non-
propositional.  [56]  [57]  This could be the case when an intentional
attitude is directed only at an object. In this view, Elsie's fear of snakes
is a non-propositional intentional attitude while Joseph's fear that he will
be bitten by snakes is a propositional intentional attitude.  [56]
---
Speed/isotropy  |
Central to _epistemic approaches_ is the idea that the subject has privileged
epistemic access to her mental states. In this view, a state of a subject
constitutes a mental state if and only if the subject has privileged access to
it.  [4]  [7]  [8]  It has been argued that this access is _non-inferential_ ,
_infallible_ and _private_ . _Non-inferential access_ is insufficient as a
mark of the mind if one accepts that we have non-inferential knowledge of non-
mental things, for example, in regular perception or in bodily experience.
[4]  It is sometimes held that knowledge of one's own mental states is
_infallible_ , i.e. that the subject cannot be wrong about having them. But
while this may be true for some conscious mental states, there are various
counterexamples, like unconscious mental states or conscious emotions that we
do not know how to categorize.  [4]  The most influential characterization of
privileged access has been that it is _private_ , i.e. that mental states are
known primarily just by the subject and only through their symptoms like
speech acts or other expressions by other people.  [4]  [8]  An influential
but not universally accepted argument against this tradition is the  private
language argument  due to  Ludwig Wittgenstein  . He argues that mental states cannot be private because if
they were, we would not be able to refer to them using public language.  [9]
[10]
*  Newton (unit)  "Newton \(unit\)")
*  Newton's cradle 
*  Isaac Newton Institute 
*  Isaac Newton Medal 
*  Isaac Newton Telescope 
*  Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes 
*  XMM-Newton 
*  Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form 
*  Statal Institute of Higher Education Isaac Newton 
*  Newton International Fellowship
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Certain mental states, like beliefs and  intentions  , are rationally evaluable: they are either  rational
 or  irrational 
depending on whether they obey the norms of rationality.  [68]  But other
states, like urges, experiences of dizziness or hunger, are arational: they
are outside the domain of rationality and can be neither rational nor
irrational.  [68]  An important distinction within rationality concerns the
difference between  theoretical and practical rationality
 .  [69]
Theoretical rationality covers beliefs and their degrees while practical
rationality focuses on desires, intentions and actions.  [70]  Some theorists
aim to provide a comprehensive account of all forms of rationality but it is
more common to find separate treatments of specific forms of rationality that
leave the relation to other forms of rationality open.  [69]
###  Conscious and unconscious
###  Sensation, propositional attitudes and intentionality
###  Problems
Mental states also include attitudes towards  propositions
 , of which there are at least two— 
factive  and non-factive, both of which
entail the mental state of acquaintance. To be acquainted with a proposition
is to understand its  meaning  "Meaning
\(non-linguistic\)") and be able to entertain it. The proposition can be true
or false, and acquaintance requires no specific attitude towards that truth or
falsity. Factive attitudes include those mental states that are attached to
the truth of the proposition—i.e. the proposition entails truth. Some factive
mental states include "perceiving that", "remembering that", "regretting
that", and (more controversially) "knowing that".  [89]  Non-factive attitudes
do not entail the truth of the propositions to which they are attached. That
is, one can be in one of these mental states and the proposition can be false.
An example of a non-factive attitude is believing—people can believe a false
proposition and people can believe a true proposition. Since there is the
possibility of both, such mental states do not entail truth, and therefore,
are not active. However, belief does entail an attitude of assent toward the
presumed truth of the proposition (whether or not it is so), making it and
other non-factive attitudes different from a mere acquaintance.
Arguments for eliminativism
**Footnotes**
###  Aether drag
*  Harry Bateman  (1915)  The Structure of the Aether  , _ Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society  _ 21(6):299–309.
* Decaen, Christopher A. (2004),  "Aristotle's Aether and Contemporary Science"  , _The Thomist_ , **68** (3): 375–429,  doi  "Doi \(identifier\)") :  10.1353/tho.2004.0015  ,  S2CID  "S2CID \(identifier\)")  171374696  , archived from  the original  on 2012-03-05  , retrieved  2011-03-05  .
*  The Aether of Space   Archived  2017-09-13 at the  Wayback Machine  – Lord Rayleigh's address
*  ScienceWeek Theoretical Physics: On the Aether and Broken Symmetry 
*  The New Student's Reference Work/Ether
*  Dirac sea 
*  Etheric plane 
*  Galactic year 
*  History of special relativity 
*  Le Sage's theory of gravitation 
*  One-way speed of light 
*  Preferred frame 
*  Superseded scientific theories 
*  Virtual particle 
*  Welteislehre
In 1720,  James Bradley  carried out a
series of experiments attempting to measure  stellar parallax
 by taking measurements of stars
at different times of the year. As the Earth moves around the Sun, the
apparent angle to a given distant spot changes. By measuring those angles the
distance to the star can be calculated based on the known orbital
circumference of the Earth around the Sun. He failed to detect any parallax,
thereby placing a lower limit on the distance to stars.
#  Luminiferous aether
Another, completely different attempt to save "absolute" aether was made in
the  Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction hypothesis
 , which posited that _everything_ was affected by
travel through the aether. In this theory the reason the Michelson–Morley
experiment "failed" was that the apparatus contracted in length in the
direction of travel. That is, the light was being affected in the "natural"
manner by its travel through the aether as predicted, but so was the apparatus
itself, cancelling out any difference when measured. FitzGerald had inferred
this hypothesis from a paper by  Oliver Heaviside  . Without referral to an aether, this physical
interpretation of relativistic effects was  shared by Kennedy and Thorndike

in 1932 as they concluded that the interferometer's arm contracts and also the
frequency of its light source "very nearly" varies in the way required by
relativity.  [E 28]  [11]
But the same was not supposed to be true for light, since Maxwell's
mathematics demanded a single universal speed for the propagation of light,
based, not on local conditions, but on two measured properties, the 
permittivity  and  permeability
 "Permeability \(electromagnetism\)")
of free space, that were assumed to be the same throughout the universe. If
these numbers did change, there should be noticeable effects in the sky; stars
in different directions would have different colours, for instance.  [ _
verification needed   _ ]
In the 17th century,  Robert Boyle  was a
proponent of an aether hypothesis. According to Boyle, the aether consists of
subtle particles, one sort of which explains the absence of vacuum and the
mechanical interactions between bodies, and the other sort of which explains
phenomena such as magnetism (and possibly gravity) that are, otherwise,
inexplicable on the basis of purely mechanical interactions of macroscopic
bodies, "though in the ether of the ancients there was nothing taken notice of
but a diffused and very subtle substance; yet we are at present content to
allow that there is always in the air a swarm of streams moving in a
determinate course between the north pole and the south".  [3]
##  Definition
*  Tests of relativistic energy and momentum 
*  Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann experiments
Aether theory was dealt another blow when the Galilean transformation and
Newtonian dynamics were both modified by  Albert Einstein
 's  special theory of relativity
 , giving the mathematics of 
Lorentzian electrodynamics  a new, "non-aether" context.  [A 18]  Unlike most major shifts in
scientific thought, special relativity was adopted by the scientific community
remarkably quickly, consistent with Einstein's later comment that the laws of
physics described by the Special Theory were "ripe for discovery" in 1905.  [B
10]  Max Planck's early advocacy of the special theory, along with the elegant
formulation given to it by  Hermann Minkowski  , contributed much to the rapid acceptance of special
relativity among working scientists.
Retrieved from " 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mental_state&oldid=1214238581
 "
A century later,  Thomas Young  "Thomas
Young \(scientist\)") [a]  and  Augustin-Jean Fresnel  revived the wave theory of light when
they pointed out that light could be a  transverse wave
 rather than a longitudinal wave;
the polarization of a transverse wave (like Newton's "sides" of light) could
explain birefringence, and in the wake of a series of experiments on
diffraction the particle model of Newton was finally abandoned.  Physicists
 assumed, moreover, that, like mechanical waves,
light waves required a medium for  propagation  , and thus required Huygens's idea of an aether "gas" permeating
all space.
Intentionality and consciousness are identical  

Some eliminativists reject intentionality while accepting the existence of
qualia. Other eliminativists reject qualia while accepting intentionality.
Many philosophers argue that intentionality cannot exist without consciousness
and vice versa, and so any philosopher who accepts one while rejecting the
other is being inconsistent. They argue that, to be consistent, one must
accept both qualia and intentionality or reject them both. Philosophers who
argue for such a position include  Philip Goff
 "Philip Goff \(philosopher\)") , Terence
Horgan, Uriah Kriegal, and John Tienson.  [47]  [48]  The philosopher  Keith
Frankish  accepts the existence of
intentionality but holds to illusionism about consciousness because he rejects
qualia. Goff notes that beliefs are a kind of propositional thought.
##  The history of light and aether
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