Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mjbtn!raider!brainiac!dagmar From: dagmar@brainiac.raidernet.com (Greble Dagmar) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: how many distinct thoughts can a person have? Message-ID: Date: 21 Jun 91 04:29:46 GMT References: <1991Jun19.033316.18773@athena.mit.edu> Organization: Phillip's Philosophy Shop, Nashville TN Lines: 28 mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes: > > I was just reading Z. Pylyshin's "Computation and Cognition", and > at one point, he states something like: "the number of distinct human > 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? Note I do not mean > "astronomicallly large" - I mean infinite (and perhaps uncountably so) > in the strict mathematical sense. It seems plausible to me; does > anyone have a good argument either way? You might want to try to define 'distinct human thoughts' a little further (and then bring world peace, too :) ), but as I see it what Pylyshin has put forth is undeniably true, althought I wouldn't go so far as to say infinite in that manner you did, simply because we humans are a finite number, composed of a finite number of atoms, etc... I would say that they are completely uncountable unless one wishes to classify, and sub-classify, and sub-sub-classify as to make even the Dewey Decimal System seem like a breeze. Hence, you've got to define the 'distinctness' of the thought itself, or you end up 'combing spaghetti'. I think that we could possibly put an upper limit to them (big maybe) on a sheerly chemical/biological basis, but it still wouldn't give us much of an analysis of what's going on in one's head. -- _-----_ ------------------------------------------------------------------- = \:/ = Save Mother Earth or Die! : Greble Dagmar... Occult Theologian =_ : _= (This is not a joke.) :...!uunet!mjbtn!raider!brainiac!dagmar -- ----- -------------------------------------------------------------------