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Article 1185 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: kohout@cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: MIND, BRAIN, CONCIOUSNESS
Message-ID: <42213@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 91 14:42:15 GMT
References: <1991Oct29.214816.23349@timessqr.gc.cuny.edu> <2794@infinet.UUCP>
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In article <2794@infinet.UUCP> sena@infinet.UUCP (Fred Sena) writes:
>
>
>  "I think I think; therefore, I think I am."
>						- Ambrose Bierce
>
>
>You think you have a mind, and you think that you have a history, and you
>think that there is a world, but the fact is that is that "you are! now!" and
>that is all there is to it.
>

I appreciate Bierce's play on words, but your interpretation of it reduces
it to Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", which is normally translated as
"I think, therefore I am". It's not quite as snappy, but as I read Descartes,
"I have consciousness, therefore I have existence" is probably more accurate.

The notion of the priority of consciousness sparked a revolution in 
Western philosophy which we're only beginning to recover from. The
clash of objectivism vs. subjectivism is many ages old, and the battlefield
is fraught with many pitfalls, as regular readers of this group should be 
well aware.

I fear we're about to take up the Mind/Body problem for the umpteenth
time. Before you decide to argue the primacy of Mind, Brain, Body or
Soul please ask yourself a) does it belong in comp.ai.philosophy and
b) whether or not you're asserting something that's been posted here
many times before, in many different ways, and to absolutely no avail.

I don't want to suggest that these issues aren't important. They are,
and everyone is bound to develop an opinion of their own. I just
want to point out that a debate along these lines is destined to be
interminable.

Bob Kohout


