From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wupost!darwin.sura.net!gatech!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.bbn.com!papaya.bbn.com!cbarber Tue Nov 26 12:30:56 EST 1991
Article 1440 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca sci.philosophy.tech:1025 comp.ai.philosophy:1440 sci.med:5696
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>From: cbarber@bbn.com (Chris Barber)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy,sci.med
Subject: Re: Liver, kidneys, and brain
Message-ID: <3912@papaya.bbn.com>
Date: 20 Nov 91 16:19:47 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <kie1rcINN2rb@cs.utexas.edu> <1991Nov19.095707.5602@husc3.harvard.edu>
Followup-To: sci.philosophy.tech
Organization: BBN Systems and Technology, Inc.
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In article <1991Nov19.095707.5602@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>what makes a physiologist an expert on consciousness?

For that matter, what makes anyone (including yourself), an
expert on consciousness?  I personally, am aware that many
neuroscientists (not merely physiologists) often worry about
what consciousness is and how it is manifested in the human
brain.  Many such people have done extensive research and
experimentation with human and animal subjects trying to deal
with this problem.  While I would not claim that anyone has
more than touched the surface of this phenomenon, I think that
such research qualifies them as being as expert as anyone else.

>I don't believe that cognitive and psychological states and processes are
>identical, or both reducible to physical processes.

This is really the crux of the problem with this whole thread.
The belief that psychological states/processes are not explainable
in physical terms can only be verified by exhaustion - all possible
physical explanations have been ruled out leaving a mysterious 
something else, because non-physical phenomenon, whatever that means
is not physically observable and unless one claims one is endowed with
mystical powers, physical phenomenon is all we have to work with.
Unfortunately, it is in practice if not in principle,
impossible to rule out all physical explanations.  So the 
argument comes down to one of unsubstantiated belief. I won't
fault anyone's belief, but I do have problems with those who claim
their beliefs are proveable and then fail to prove them.

>Do you believe that if you remove all legs of a roach, he can no longer
>hear? 

Probably, I don't think roaches hear even when they have legs!

>Medical science operates on the level of material substance, 

True

>                                                             and concerns
>itself with stimulus and response; 

Only partially true: medical science does not restrict itself
to the study of stimulus and response.  Not all neuroscientists 
are behaviorists.

>Your fine rhetoric is utterly pointless: until and unless you can explain to
>me why urine is analogous with self-awareness, striving, belief, doubt, and
>understanding, please leave the doctors out of this discussion.

I didn't really need to include this sentence but it reads really well
taken out of context :-)



-- 
Christopher Barber
(cbarber@bbn.com)


