Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!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: <863@wrs.wrs.com> Date: 1 Mar 90 19:36:56 GMT References: <1990Feb13.225830.13432@wam.umd.edu> <859@wrs.wrs.com> <861@wrs.wrs.com> <14352@s.ms.uky.edu> Reply-To: hwajin@wrs.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae) Distribution: usa Organization: Wind River Systems, Emeryville, CA Lines: 166 In article <14352@s.ms.uky.edu> you write: >Hwa Jin Bae has written on Descartes; another and I have tried to correct >some of his misunderstandings. This is my final contribution to the >exchange. M. Bae states that the discussion is becoming too philosophically >oriented for this group, if so, I apologize for wasting the readers' time. >The general problem is that M. Bae lacks an understanding of Descartes' >work and refuses to believe that others may be correct or have a better >grasp of Descartes. > i lack understanding of descartes' work but i do not refuse to believe that others may be correct or have a better grasp of descartes. i'm perfectly willing to give you a chance to prove to me that you indeed possess better understanding of his work. since you seem to think that you do, perhaps it is so. i'm not yet convinced of that. if you're to condemn someone of ignorance you're entitled to your opinion but please do not accuse me of refusing to believe that anyone else might have a better understanding of descartes than i. feel free to quote any remark that i made which suggested that i did. i certainly don't recall having said anything that suggested my supposed arrogance. i don't believe that i have full understanding of descartes. i was explaining what i undertood of him -- N.B. *my* understanding, as yours is *yours*, who is to say which is truly correct? -- not condemning others' of ignorance or refusing to listen to me, as you've done here. it saddens me to think that anyone who has read the meditation can bring himself down to doing such things in public out of sheer misunderstanding. nevertheless, if i offended in any way that might have cause this kind of response i apologize for that. i will not, however, apologize for my "ignorance" and "distorted" understanding. my opinions and my interpretations of others' works are my own and who cannot force- feed me into taking your views without rigorous and convincing argument. we have not gone through that. you've stated some facts which seemed very fragmented and inconsistent to me and i stated a few bits of my understanding that was differently conceived/interpreted. >In article <861@wrs.wrs.com>, hwajin@wrs.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae) writes: >> 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 > >The point came up because you said that Descartes searched for parts >of the mind analgous to parts of physical objects. > it's a pity that i do not possess photographic memory. i agree, overall descartes did say that mind is indivisible but i do recall a few places in meditations that caught my attention which described his ideas of setting up relationships between mind and body -- only brief references. that was what i was referring to and it was not even relevant to my discussion. i don't know why i said anything about that at all now that i think of it. it was not needed in the discussion and it seems that this has been blown out of proportion. i think the blurriness in descartes insistence on the indivisibility of mind and the later work on mind-body relationships, in general, are quite confusing for lay readers such as myself. clarification: it was 1:00am in the morning when i wrote that sentence about corresponding mind-body problems. unlike some, i do not have super-human power of consistency. >> our discussion, Descartes did argue that mind is non-physical and >> thus served as a token of his existence -- he actually doubted > >Mind did not serve as a token of his existence; it *is* his existence. > token of his existence is almost a straight quote by descartes -- again my memory fails me. besides, what's the point? what's the meaning of this staccato remark? >> the existence of all physical objects, but was unable to doubt the >> existence of himself as a thinking being. However, he also realized > >Descartes never "actually doubted" the existence of physical objects; >your phrasing shows a very shallow reading of the Meditations. > oh yes. i know i'm shallow. i'm also superficial. i know i am. do you know you are too? yes, you too. we all are. someone once wrote that knowing that you're shallow is profound. 8-) descartes did "actually doubt" his existence. i'll try and look up the part where he does that. if my memory is not complete bankrupt and full of parity errors, i believe i've read him actually say that. i didn't make that one up. perhaps i was reading the words as written (i.e. superficially). >> 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. > >No, you are confused. Indivisibility does not imply non-interaction; it >simply implies a lack of parts. > indivisibility does not mean lack of parts. it kind of implies that it's pretty damn hard to break it apart without errors. i did not say indivisibility implied non-interaction. i said the concept of indivisibility of mind and his work on interaction between mind and body and the fact that he considered body to be divisible confuses me, or perhaps he was confused. that's what i said. >> >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. . . . >> I still don't understand this fetish with Aristotle. The emphasis > >Aristotle is brought up because you keep imputing Aristotle's ideas >to Descates. > correction... it was ken presting who started the talk about aristotle. i never brought it up. once it was brought up i made littlest comments about it (one sentence i think) to actively discourage any more side-tracking. >> of my original posting was on the dualistic methodology of Cartesian >> thinking systems. I never even mentioned Aristotle. . . . > >> >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 > >I fear it is not I who misunderstand Descartes, and I'll stake several >years of graduate study in philosophy of mind and several readings of >the Meditations, Discourse on Method and Descartes' commentators on it. > hey. i'm an amateur. i read the stuff out of pure joy and interpret it as i read them. i do not study the damn things. i just read to get the feel, the flow, and get my shit together, that's all. when given a chance, i'll exhibit my ignorance to others -- perhaps if i'm lucky i'll get some enlightenment from people like you who seemed to have spent more time with it. but sometimes, scorn is all i get. oh well. you win some, you lose some. >> 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 > >Descartes is quite explicit that thoughts are *not* biological in origin. > agreed. the biological foundation of cartesian school of thoughts means nothing descartes did. note that lack of his name in this phrase. i explicitly avoided using his name and used cartesian school of thoughts. i was *not* also talking about the origin of thoughts -- be it biological or not. i was talking about one aspect of cartesian school of thinking that supposes that mind is also a kind of automata. >Richard L. Shelby rshelby@ms.uky.edu >Department of Health Services rshelby@ukma.BITNET >University of Kentucky {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!rshelby -- Hwa Jin Bae (hwajin@wrs.com) Wind River Systems