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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Reductionist Materialism (was Re: I lie therefore I am?)
Message-ID: <CzDLDA.HBF@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <36e5oe$6nc@toves.cs.city.ac.uk> <fred.hegge.110.1BEA33F4@paltech.com> <1994Nov14.203936.12341@seas.smu.edu> <CzBuxE.434@spss.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 19:41:34 GMT
Lines: 40

In article <CzBuxE.434@spss.com>, Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>In article <1994Nov14.203936.12341@seas.smu.edu>,
>Kenneth J. Hendrickson <kjh@seas.smu.edu> wrote:
>>You beg the question.  You first assume that material stuff is all that
>>exists, and then assume (correctly based upon the assumption) that ideas
>>must exist in material media.  I will concede to you that for beings
>>such as humans, who have both physical and non-physical components, a
>>physical medium is necessary for communication of ideas.  However, while
>>you use your physical brain for perception, you don't use it for storing
>>ideas.  Ideas have ABOUTness.  It is not possible for any arrangement of
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It may be worth pointing out that this is untrue. ABOUTness is not a property
of ideas, it is a property which is assigned to them by brains. This can be
easily seen from the fact that the same idea can have different ABOUTness
for different people. To stick to an example used some time ago in this 
group, for A 'love' may be about having sex with B, and for B it may be about
getting flowers (and/or jewelry) from A.

>>chemicals or electrical impulses to have ABOUTness.  Therefore, ideas
>>are not stored in the physical brain.  The mind is not the brain.  Your
>>assumption is wrong.
>
>I see.  Now how about a proof of the claim that "it is not possible for
>any arrangement of chemicals or electrical impulses to have ABOUTness",
>which does not itself beg the question?

I'd like to see such a proof too. On the other hand an automatic system
sniffing through, say luggage in an airport luggage handling system, for 
traces of cocaine and raising alarm when the complex molecule is identified,
has as much ABOUTness as dogs employed for the same task. If Kenneth 
Hendrickson claims that dogs do not have ideas (with ABOUTness), does he also 
deny this to chimpanzees?

Andrzej

-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
