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Article 2298 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Reasons
Message-ID: <1991Dec19.205710.2295@arizona.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 91 03:57:09 GMT
References: <16089@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Dec18.151208.6749@husc3.harvard.edu> <16114@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Dec19.171507.6784@husc3.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
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Michael Gemar:
>*I* uniquely determine what *I* am thinking about.  I am the sole arbiter
>of the content of my conscious thoughts.  How could it possibly be otherwise?

Chris Malcom:
>Simple. You could be wrong. People often are.

Mikhail Zeleny:
>He could be wrong, but not in a way that could be legitimately 
>corrected by you.

CM:
>What on earth is the point of this silly and irrelevant ad hominem
>attack? Oh, sorry, Mikhail, didn't spot your sig.

MZ:
>The point is to suggest that Michael's beliefs about the content of his
>conscious thought are incorrigible by an external observer.  Much like your
>own philosophical misconceptions, but in a different sense.

Can't we try to behave like adults here?

Michael's beliefs about the content of his thoughts may be incorrigible
by an external observer (though I am dubious about this), but his
beliefs about what *controls* his thoughts can't be.  They can't
possibly be incorrigible because they are obviously wrong.  Even
Michael will probably realize this if he sits down and thinks about
it for a while.  If we don't know where our thoughts come from (as
all of us often don't), how can we possibly have determined them?

	-- Bill


