From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!milton!monaghan Sun Dec  1 13:06:07 EST 1991
Article 1698 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: monaghan@milton.u.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan)
Subject: Re: Consciousness (was Re: Daniel Dennett)
Message-ID: <1991Nov27.223317.29140@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: monaghan@u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
References: <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Nov26.232035.5031@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Nov26.230236.5943@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1991 22:33:17 GMT

In article <1991Nov26.230236.5943@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1991Nov26.232035.5031@milton.u.washington.edu> 
>monaghan@milton.u.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan) writes:
>
>>In article <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>
>>TM
>>Hold your horses there, partner.  Are you implying that the mind exists
>>beyond the functioning of the brain?
>
>Exactly.
>
>TM:
>>                                     That there is some 'magik' going on?
>
>Not at all.  Spinoza was able to give a perfectly good rationalist theory
>of mind that stipulated panpsychism, among other thing.  In other words,

magic by any othername would still be beyond nature.

Based on my (limited) reading of Spinoza, I don't see where he specifies
any distinction between mind and brain.  The mind (perception, recognition,
and understanding) are but a name given to the normal function of the brain.

I agree that resolving the functioning of the brain my be intractable, but
I can not ascribe to "panpsychism", witchcraft, of the spirit world.

>
>
>As I have argued, you lose the possibility of explaining semantical
>understanding as a function of the mind.
>

But the mind is but a function of the brain.


Cheers,

Tracy
monaghan@u.washington.edu

--------------------------

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
protein -- it rejects it.
		-- P. Medawar



