Logical priority of conventional methods of determining thoughts over brain scanner
There is a causal dependence between brain activity and experience, but it is a leap to suggest that we can identify brain activity with experience.
Even if we found an incredible empirical correlation between brain activity and experience, if we suddenly had a conflict one day (brain scanner says that the subject thinks he’s drinking coffee, but we see him eating ice cream and he assures us he knows/believes he is eating ice cream), then we would conclude the brain scanner is wrong, not the
What it means to be a thought is not the same thing as what it means to be a brain state
Brain states connected by casual relationships. Cannot be ‘correct’ or incorrect.
Mental states occupy the space of reasons - the meaning of certain thought is identified by its relationships to other thoughts. Structured by normative relationships (can be correct or incorrect).
If brain scanner with amazing correlation says that someone is telling a lie by analyzing brain states, they may be lying 100% of the time that brain scanner says they’re lying, but it is not the brain state itself that makes them lying or not.