From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!generic.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!chalmers Tue Nov 19 11:08:45 EST 1991
Article 1168 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: MIND, BRAIN, CONCIOUSNESS
Message-ID: <1991Oct30.224506.8259@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 30 Oct 91 22:45:06 GMT
References: <1991Oct29.214816.23349@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 29

In article <1991Oct29.214816.23349@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu> las@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu writes:

>Having been trained as a mathematician I feel very inclined
>to ask for a defenition of what is meant by the following terms:

>b) brain

That squishy grey stuff in the head.

>c) consciousness

Those raw feelings of subjective experience that we have.

>a) mind

This is systematically ambiguous, splitting into two concepts:

Mind-1: the entity that is responsible for the causation of behaviour.
Mind-2: the sum total of our subjective experience (see "consciousness").

Mind-1 turns out to be contingently identical to Brain, though it is
often better viewed in terms of high-level causal patterns within
the brain.  Mind-2 may turn out to be contingently identical to
Mind-1 and Brain, but this is far from obvious to me.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


