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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More mirrors, more dust
Message-ID: <827@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Jul-84 21:36:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.827
Posted: Fri Jul  6 21:36:49 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jul-84 02:27:53 EDT
References: <620@flairvax.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 44

>> 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.
> Pardon me, but I have yet to see any application of the scientific
> method in this discussion.  You have stated a thesis - that the mind 
> does not exist - and challenged us to disprove it.  You never gave any 
> definition of what a mind *is* (other than something that doesn't exist).

Pardon me (for breathing, which I never do anyway...), but the mind is the
"thesis" that has been stated and is in need of proof via scientific method.
The notion of "mind" as some sort of "extraphysical" entity goes against
currently understood scientific postulates, so it's clear where the burden
of proof lies.  If one desires to simply chuck all of scientific knowledge
to date, the idea is that one has to have something pretty damn good to
replace it with.

> The closest dictionary to hand gives as a primary definition
> 
> Mind n 1. The element or elements in an individual governing reasoning,
> 	  thought, perception, feeling, will, memory, and imagination.
> 
> So I suppose you mean to say that you do not reason, think, perceive, feel,
> will, remember, or imagine.  

The definition of unicorn is also offered in the dictionary.
The word simply describes an entity that people BELIEVE performs those
functions.  Until otherwise shown, why should we not believe that those
functions take place in the physical brain?

> As to the bit about the presumed deism of human beings, I don't see
> what that has to do with it, except as an epithet for the difficulties
> in applying behaviorist precepts that work well on relatively un-self-
> conscious beings like pigeons to relatively self-conscious beings such
> as humans.  I suspect that it is precisely these difficulties that 
> condition some behaviorists to reject the existence of the mind: it
> clutters up their nice model.

Is it behaviorism that is befuddled by the existence of the mind, or is it
"mind-ism" that is afraid of the notion that our behavior could be manifested
in the physical world rather than in some extraphysical entity?  I don't
see any contradictions in the "nice model".  Where's the clutter?
-- 
Now I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to catch the bus of thought.
			Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr