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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Roger Penrose's New Book (in HTML) 1.0
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Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 16:19:22 GMT
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In article <MATT.94Nov23120933@physics10.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:
>In article <3b011s$4g4@galaxy.ucr.edu> baez@guitar.ucr.edu (john baez) writes:
>
>> I agree that people mainly look for "far-out physics" explanations of
>> consciousness because they think there should be a little "me" sitting
>> somewhere inside my brain, a homunculus, soul, pineal gland, ghost in
>> the machine, or other spookery that "explains" the fact that I am able
>> to do so many cool things, like be self-aware.  Of course such
>> "explanations" wouldn't "explain" consciousness even if they were true.
>> One would simply have to crack open the homunculus and see how THAT is
>> conscious. 

But the explanation is some "far-out physics".  Where's the
homunculus in that?  You may be right about why people look
for `"far-out physics" explanations', but the explanations
themselves needn't involve any `little "me"'.

>If you want to evade a materialist explanation of the mind, you'll
>have to come up with a more subtle idea than Cartesian dualism.

Why suppose that everyone's trying to evade a materialist
explanation.  Searle, for instance, says the mind is realized
in the brain.  Penrose, with his world of Platonic forms,
is a different story; but he's nonetheless not a Cartesian
dualist.

>That's always been my objection to Cartesian dualism: not that I think
>it's wrong, but that I think it's ultimately incoherent.

Could be.

>[...]

>My objection to Cartesian dualism is that, in my opinion, it's really
>exactly the same thing as a materialist explanation of the mind.
>After all, if a mind is something that can interact with physical
>matter (like pineal glands), then why not just expand the definition
>of the physical world to include minds?  It might not be made of
>protoplasm or atoms, but surely it's just as physical as (say) an
>electric field.  It's just a part of the physical world that has
>slightly unusual physical properties.

But this sounds more like a revision and defense of Cartesian dualism to
me.  In effect, you extend the physical to include both Cartesian
substances rather thabn rejecting one substance altogether.

-- jeff




