From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!jupiter!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!aunro!ukma!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Tue Nov 26 12:32:25 EST 1991
Article 1590 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.arts.books:10657 sci.philosophy.tech:1120 comp.ai.philosophy:1590
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!jupiter!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!aunro!ukma!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff
>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Zeleny (was Re: Searle
Message-ID: <5691@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 25 Nov 91 19:41:15 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Nov24.224724.2149@arizona.edu>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Distribution: world,local
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 22

In article <1991Nov24.224724.2149@arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>  Arguments such as Searle's and Penrose's and Zeleny's are 
>essentially theological.  They all assume that humans have
>one or another mystic power.  Penrose assumes that humans have
>infallible intuitions for mathematical "truth".  Searle
>assumes that human brains have unspecified "causal powers".

Searle does _not_ assume this.  He concludes it.  The
reason the causal powers are unspecified is that no one
knows enough about how brains work.

Moreover, Searle does not assume any mystic powers.
He's more or less a materialist about mind.

Here's a quote from his first Reith Lecture (they have since
been reprinted as a small book):

   We don't yet fully understand the processes, but we understand
   that there are certain specific electrochemical activities going
   on ... and that these processes cause consciousness.

-- jeff


