From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Thu Jan  9 10:34:14 EST 1992
Article 2568 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Reasons
Message-ID: <5911@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Jan 92 21:06:10 GMT
References: <1991Dec18.151208.6749@husc3.harvard.edu> <16114@castle.ed.ac.uk> <5895@skye.ed.ac.uk> <16315@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 64

In article <16315@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <5895@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <16114@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>>In article <1991Dec18.151208.6749@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>>>>cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>
>>>>>In article <1991Dec17.154142.21021@psych.toronto.edu> 
>>>>>michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>MG:
>>>>>>*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?
>
>CM:
>>>>>Simple. You could be wrong. People often are.
>
>MZ:
>>>>He could be wrong, but not in a way that could be legitimately 
>>>>corrected by you.
>*******************************
>
>>Or by anyone else, since *he* is the *sole arbiter*.
>
>>>What on earth is the point of this silly and irrelevant ad hominem
>>>attack?
>
>>What?
>
>Ah, I see it now. If you beleive that a person is the sole arbiter of
>the content of their conscious thoughts, then MZ's ***** remark can be
>interpreted as a necessary truth. On the other hand, if "legitimate"
>is interpreted as a reference to the philosophical qualifications,
>appropriate degree of intelligence, and moral character of the
>addressee (a not unlikely possibility in a posting from MZ), then it
>is an ad hominem attack.

But then it doesn't follow from the earlier line

  *I* uniquely determine what *I* am thinking about.

something you though sufficiently relevant to include it in
your reply.

Accusations of ad hominem attacks are a standard part of net.rhetoric,
but in this case they don't actually serve to discredit the claim that

   *I* uniquely determine what *I* am thinking about.

What's the point, unless you want a more heated exchange?
(and aren't things heated enough already, around here.)

>My mother was always telling me what I thought. As a general
>libertarian principle (which my mother would not accept where her
>relatives were concerned) I agree that the owner of a thought should
>be regarded as the legally proper arbiter of its content, but in
>reality my mother was sometimes right about what I thought, and I was
>wrong, as I realised at the time. She corrected me, in fact correctly,
>albeit in terms of libertarian principle illegitimately.

It seems to me that someone can be wrong about their thoughts in
some ways but not in others.  I'll leave it to others to untangle
all the philosophical details.

-- jd


