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From: mlevin@athena.mit.edu (Mike Levin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: how many distinct thoughts can a person have?
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.173307.10704@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 19 Jun 91 17:33:07 GMT
References: <1991Jun19.033316.18773@athena.mit.edu> <314@trwacs.UUCP>
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In article <314@trwacs.UUCP> erwin@trwacs.UUCP (Harry Erwin) writes:
>mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes:
>
>
>>thoughts is uncountable." Does anyone have any arguments for or
>>against the idea that the number of possible distinct human thoughts
>>(or mental states) is uncountably infinite? 
>
>The number of distinct human thoughts isn't even countably infinite
>in a quantum-mechanical universe, let alone uncountable. However,
>if we ignore that argument, the question boils down to whether the
>state of the brain is sensitively dependent to its state on a
>cauchy surface. I believe Paul Rapp has evidence that it is. So,
>although the number isn't infinite, it looks like it's uncountable.
>
>-- 
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com

  I am sorry - I didn't specify the following in my original message.
I am not looking for arguments from physics or neurobiology (but if
you have an interesting one, let's hear it). I am specifically
interested in arguments which do not assume a specific substratum for
the mind, nor a specific theory of cognition.  I am looking for
people's ideas on this question from the point of view of philosophy or
perhaps non-physiological psychology. An example of the kind of thing
I have in mind: "there are an infinite number of possible objects, and
upon considering each one, a person will/will not have a distinct
mental state because ...". So I am more interested in arguments
stemming from the higher-level concepts of "idea" or "thought" rather
than the bottom-up approcah of trying to figure out how many states
the brain can have, etc. In asking this question I realize that I am
disregarding the behaviorist objection, and also (in trying to make
this substratum- and theory-independent) appealing to each person's
knowlege of what an idea or thought is.

Mike Levin