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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Dennet and Dualism
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Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 17:25:33 GMT
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In article <379nqb$68o@tuba.cit.cornell.edu> daa1@crux3.cit.cornell.edu (David Alcocer) writes:
>ua352af@sun4.lrz-muenchen.de (Michael Pietroforte) writes:
>
>>Dennet (Consciousness Explained, chapter 2, paragraph 4) mentions 
>>the following argument against Cartesian Dualism: Everything  that is 
>>able to interact with matter must by itself be matter (by definition). So 
>>there can't exist a substance (called mind stuff) which is not material 
>>but interacts with matter.
>
>Dennet doesn't quite say this.  He merely suggests that if such mind-stuff 
>does exist, then it must be very mysterious and requires rethinking some 
>generally accepted physical laws.  [...]

>  "It is not that I think I can give a knock-down proof that dualism, in 
>   all its forms, is false or incoherent, but that, given the way dualism 
>   wallows in mystery, _accepting dualism is giving up._"  (Chapter 2, 
>   Section 4, p. 37 of the paperback edition.)

>In other words, we ought not to accept dualism until we make an honest
>effort to see if consciousness might be explained from a less exotic,
>materialist perspective.

Why is it that people are inclined to take this attitude when
it comes to dualism but the opposite attitude about whether something
that passes the Turing Test is conscious (or understands or has a
mind or whatever the current issue is)?  Why not (that is) see if
TT-passing can be explained w/o bring in consciousness, mind, etc.?

