Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!rex!ames!amdahl!rtech!wrs!hwajin
From: hwajin@wrs.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: more Chinese Room
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room, Descartes, Cartesian
Message-ID: <861@wrs.wrs.com>
Date: 27 Feb 90 07:44:48 GMT
References: <1990Feb13.225830.13432@wam.umd.edu> <859@wrs.wrs.com> <14319@s.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: hwajin@wrs.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Wind River Systems, Emeryville, CA
Lines: 57

In article <14319@s.ms.uky.edu> rshelby@ms.uky.edu (Richard Shelby) writes:
>This is definitely not Descartes' view; Descartes continually insisted
>that the non-physical is simple and indivisible, hence cannot be broken
>into parts (whether corresponding to physical parts or not).  

Where did this point come up?  In any case, as irrelevant as it is to
our discussion, Descartes did argue that mind is non-physical and 
thus served as a token of his existence -- he actually doubted
the existence of all physical objects, but was unable to doubt the
existence of himself as a thinking being.  However, he also realized
that the dualism faces considerable philosophical problems -- especially
that of "causal interaction".  He recognized that in many cases mind
and body intermingle to form a kind of unit.  As much as he wanted
to insist on the indivisibily of the mind, he had to devote great efforts to
the problem of interaction between mind and body -- somewhat incompatible
substances working together in mystical ways.  Is mind then truly
indivisible?  He seems to have been quite confused.

>Aristotle,
>on the other hand, did argue that a proper method of inquiry for non-physical
>`objects' is the analysis of the object into constituents, even if the
>constituents do not exist in reality.  You were perhaps misled because
>Descartes does undertake a functional analysis of mind, but this is
>function only and has nothing to do with constituent parts.
>

I still don't understand this fetish with Aristotle.  The emphasis
of my original posting was on the dualistic methodology of Cartesian
thinking systems.  I never even mentioned Aristotle.  The problem seems
to be the automatic and casual association between the words "categorization"
and "object" and Aristotle.  Yes, yes, we've all learned Aristotelian
system of logic where one can categorize and characterize objects
by classification, via "specific difference" after the intial grouping.
Nevertheless, there's no need to drag this into our discussion.  This
thread is becoming too philosophy-oriented as is.  Besides, it's 
not related to what I was saying as I explained over and over.  My
emphasis was not at all in the categorization, but the dualistic
view of the mind-body.

>Technically, Descartes thought only non-human living organisms were automata,
>humans, he argued are something more (i.e. they have minds).
>

Notice your misunderstanding: human living organisms are not automata
because they have minds.  Human living organisms also have physiology
which was considered to be automata by Descartes and that was precisely
what I was talking about: they biological foundation of Cartesian
school of thoughts.  Of course he argued that humans have something 
more (i.e. mind) but the point is that this was not the issue brought
up in my posting.  It's really astounding to see this kind of sidetrackig.
Read what's written, as is.  Don't free associate random concepts with
particular key words.  

Follow-ups to talk.philosophy.misc please.
-- 
Hwa Jin Bae (hwajin@wrs.com)
Wind River Systems