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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Penrose & Banach-Tarski/Axiom of Choice
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Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 18:51:08 GMT
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In article <3b83o7$nkk@nnrp.ucs.ubc.ca> constab@unixg.ubc.ca (Adam Constabaris) writes:
>Jeff Dalton (jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: So you think it's basically dualism that's behind it?  Is that right?
>
>Not quite; I'm saying that there is a sort of "conceptual" dualism that's 
>behind it all right -- it doesn't have to be (e.g.) CARTESIAN 
>(interactionist) dualism or epiphenomenalism, or parallelism (a la 
>Spinoza) or whatever.  "Mind" and "body" fall into different conceptual 
>boxes (roughly speaking, of course!).  I suppose that a SORT of dualism 
>is embedded in everyday speech.

Fair enough.

>:But if mind is different from body, why couldn't machines have 
>: minds?  
>
>Well, Searle knows the answer to that: "meat" got it, "silicon" ain't got 
>it (whatever, of course, "it" is).

Not quite.  Searle thinks brains can cause minds, and he also allows
that "green slime" and maybe sillicon chips could cause minds too --
but not just in virtue of running a program.  

>: OTOH, if mental events are identical to physical events,
>: maybe it has to be physical events of the right sort: maybe
>: it's not possible to have a mind on different "hardware".
>
>Sure; but consider the original arguments for functionalism -- the point 
>is that we're willing to buy the claim that creatures not much like us 
>*physically* (and we're talking quarks here in the main, *as well as 
>neurons*, but the "neural" is regarded as unproblematically 'physical' 
>by most of the combatants) could be like us *mentally* in that we both 
>experience pain when you say, stick a needle in us.

You could allow a variety of physical types without going to
functionalism.  However, my point is just that the physicalist /
materialist position is compatible with mind being restricted to
certain hardware types.  Indeed, it rather suggests that the
physical details might matter.  

>That's all purely expository: I don't mean to endorse it categorically, I 
>just don't see what other story someone antecedently convinced of 
>"physicalism" can tell if not the "identity" story.

What do you mean?  You seemed (in the omitted part) to be giving
a functionalist account.  Are you saying that if mental events
are identical to physical events, then functionalism must follow?

>It would be nice if Searle was just arguing for old-fashioned identity 
>theory; that is NOT what he's saying (at least not explicitly) and I'm 
>not really sure what he *is* saying (see his latest, _The Rediscovery of 
>the Mind_; he wants to move "beyond dualism and materlialism", whatever 
>that means (neutral monism?)

I guess I agree with you here.  (Is this what you meant above about
what story can you tell if not the identity story: that Searle seemed
to be arguing for something else, "beyond dualism and materlialism"?)
But I think Searle's view is more or less the same as materialism
plus a denial that there's any viable distinction to be on the
materialist side of.

-- jeff
