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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: No mirror, no dust
Message-ID: <1415@proper.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Jun-84 22:47:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: proper.1415
Posted: Wed Jun 27 22:47:34 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Jun-84 03:55:38 EDT
References: <561@flairvax.UUCP>
Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland, CA
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> From: kissell@flairvax.UUCP (Kevin Kissell)
> Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA
> 
> Well, gosh, there's going to be a bit of a problem here.  The "behavior"
> which constitutes my mind is observable only to me by introspection.
> That is to say, I am aware that I am aware, and I am aware of myself
> reflecting, observing, wondering, remembering, and various other activities
> that are not externally observable.  When I speak of my mind as the
> realm of these activities, others understand what I mean, and so I conclude
> that I am not alone in my experiences, even though I cannot observe
> their minds directly.

Ah, herein lies the problem:  your claim that "others understand what
I mean" is not adequate to justify that the mind exists or performs
the activities you attribute to it.  If, in some other culture, we
were to speak of ghosts, and we knew that others knew what we meant
by ghost (because they had seen them too), would that be enough proof
to say, "there are indeed ghosts" -- and worse yet, to start making
hypotheses about these ghosts (because we've all seen them, right?).

It is also a problem that while your mind may be doing things, I can't
measure your mind's activities or compare them to my own.  "Well, of
course you can!" you would say, "do I not speak, do I not analyze,
do I not create ideas?"  Yes, you do all of those things, and all of
those things are MANIFESTED AS BEHAVIOR and it is by BEHAVIOR that
we measure these activities.  I assert, again, that the mind itself
has never been seen.  It is a ghost.

....

Do you see what I am doing here?  I am applying the scientific method
to behavior and finding little evidence to support the existence of
``mind'', other than in a mystical or colloquial context.  And my
original object to ``mind'' was:  just where is this mind anyway?
SHOW IT TO ME.  Then we can continue to discuss it's function.
Otherwise it is a piece of mythology used to support the presumed
deism of human beings.
-- 

Gordon A. Moffett

{ hplabs!nsc, decvax!sun!amd, ihnp4!dual } !proper!gam