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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Reductionist Materialism (was Re: I lie therefore I am?)
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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 21:32:03 GMT
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In article <3au7nc$6ht@news.cc.oberlin.edu> azure@cs.oberlin.edu (David 'Azure' Leland) writes:
>Jeff Dalton (jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
>: In article <jqbCzG3tE.8np@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>: >Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>: >>What makes you think A and B have the same idea in this case?
>: >>I'd say they have different ideas, but both are labeled "love".
>: >
>: >What is an idea?  Can you present us with one?
>
>: Do you have a reason for thinking A and B have the same idea
>: in the example?  So far as I can tell, we can just as easily
>: say they have different ideas.
>
>	If I may jump in... Jeff, it looks to me as if you've restated 
>your question and ignored the question as to what an idea is.

Just so.  That's exactly what I did, and I did it deliberately.

Note that my question (What makes you think A and B have the same idea
in this case?) was not answered.

We had a claim that they were the same idea.  I'm waiting for
some justification or explanation of that claim, and I'm not
going to go along with any attempt to divert into some other
issue (such as what I think an idea is).  If no one wants to
do it that way, then fine: we can just stop.

>  I believe 
>that you are right in saying that A and B have different ideas of what 
>"love" is, but there's a larger issue here.

I don't actually care whether I'm right or not.  I'd just like to
know why anyone things the ideas are the same.

>	The reason why you've been asked to present us with a question 
>is (or ought to be, IMO) that you will not be able to come up with an 
>idea about which everyone agrees absolutely completely.  [...]

If so, what are the grounds for saying the ideas are the same?

>	Now, I can't say with absolute certainty that ideas cannot exist 
>without a brain or other medium of expression, but I see no reason to 
>believe that they can.  Instead of trying to disprove this notion of 
>Platonic forms (at least that's what it sounds like to me), I think it 
>better to ask:  What reason/evidence is their to think that ideas exist 
>independently of their media, and/or that the concept of ABOUTness isn't 
>simply an idea itself which, like others, is something manifested in 
>multiple brains in a similar manner?	

I'm not sure how you see this.  Which, if either, involves a Platonist
notion of ideas: that A and B had the same idea, or that they had
different ones?

-- jeff
