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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More mirrors, more dust
Message-ID: <234@scc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Jul-84 04:09:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: scc.234
Posted: Fri Jul  6 04:09:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jul-84 07:13:46 EDT
References: <620@flairvax.UUCP>
Organization: Santa Cruz Computer, Aptos, Calif.
Lines: 80

***

> Mind n 1. The element or elements in an individual governing reasoning,
>	  thought, perception, feeling, will, memory, and imagination.

     There are many words in English that do not refer to 
a specific thing in the world but are used nonetheless.
Some thought shows that this is usually the case.  For instance
if I talk about how I like cats, the word "cat" does not refer to
any specific cat.  However, if asked what a "cat" was I could point to my
cat and say, "one of those things."   There are perfectly good
words like "justice" that do not refer to anything I can point to
in the same way I can point to a cat.  You would have as hard a
time pointing to "reasoning", "thought", "perception", "feeling",
"will", or memory as you would "mind."   Many words serve
as descriptions and explainations and do not refer to objects
in our shared universe.

> As far a science can tell, consciousness (the mind, if you will) is
> a brain function.  Our understanding of the workings of the brain is
> incomplete.  It may well be that, should we both live another 200 years,
> I will be able to sit down under some to-be-invented instrument,
> point to the display and say "that's my mind over there on the left".

    It is not correct that science generally believes that mind is
a brain function.  Mind is a explaination not a thing.
There are many books with different views of what constitutes the "mind."
There are many technical reasons to believe that given the complexity
of the brain that we could ever know the succession of states of all the
neurons over time and thus measure "brain function".  But even if
we could, how could we tell what part of that was the part that
was "mind" and not something else.  Is there is some dividing line
that we could all agree on?   Karl Popper, for instance, says that
if it is a brain function, then it is not mind.  He believes in
mind/body dualism.  There are better ways to argue a case that
to use "I am absolutely sure this will happen someday" as a premise.

   People can instantly start a debate about "mind" any time
because of the equivical nature of the word "mind".  "Mind" is 
abstract, and abstract things do not exist, prime numbers do not
exist, there is not such thing as the number 3 and truth, honesty,
justice, mind, thought, and many other things are abstract. 
The argument can never be terminated by reference to the shared
world of the participatants.

    Saying that "minds do not exist" does not denigrate the term "mind".
The idea of "mind" becomes an organizing principle.  It is an abstract
"object".  We cannot act on the world without making generalizations.
We commonly use these abstract notions to our best interest.  It is surprising
to some at first that "English" is also abstract.  Everyone talks slightly
differently, there are many accents, *emperically* and *behaviorially*
is is nonsense to talk about "English" is the sense we use it.
Practically, however, we cannot study only the utterances of a 
laboratory base of speakers.   It is useful to us for many purposes
to talk about "English" in the abstract sense.

> In the meantime, we will have to make due with "thought experiments"
> (if you believe in those) and the evidence of our own experience.

    I do not believe that "mind" is a useful abstraction.  There is nothing
in my experience to make me want to use the concept of "mind."   
In "our own experience", "our" must refer to all people.  I am sure 
as human beings we notice many of the same types of things about the
world, but I do not think any of them could be "mind".  That means
that the evidence of "our" experience does not always support the
premise that "mind exists."  

    I would believe in minds in a minute if I thought it would gain 
anything for me.  

     "observations which no one has doubted but have escaped
	remark only because they are always before our eyes."

				Don Steiny
				Personetics
				109 Torrey Pine Terr.
				Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
				(408) 425-0382
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