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Article 1244 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: MIND, BRAIN, CONCIOUSNESS
Message-ID: <2071@ucl-cs.uucp>
Date: 8 Nov 91 19:22:32 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Lines: 38

Kurt M. Alonso writes:
 > map@u02.svl.cdc.com (Mark Peters) writes:
 > 
 > >Sorry, but this view flies in the face of everything I know.  No matter how 
 > >hard I try, I cannot create or alter reality by an act of consciousness -
 > >and neither can you (or anybody else).  The mind is not a "meaning-giving" 
 > >activity, but a meaning *discovering* activity.  Consciousness has no power 
 > >to create or alter reality - it can only grasp or understand it.  
 > 
 > >The "... limits of singular things-in-the-world ..." are not set by     
 > >consciousness, but are inherent in the nature of the things themselves,
 > >and as such they are completely beyond the power of any consciousness to 
 > >alter.  As confirmation of this fact, try using your mind alone to 
 > >"alter the limits" of the computer you use to read news - can you make
 > >it run at 1000MHZ merely by wishing it to?
 > 
 > You would say I'm schizophrenic if I did (:-) .

Is this meant to funny? If so, please explain the joke.

 > It seems that we are not using the term consciousness in the same sense.
 > Just to clarify things, throughout this discussion I have 
 > assumed phenomenological definitions of consciousness, intentionality,
 > etc.. If you wish to continue this discussion, you might as well
 > explain what your usage of the term consciousness is.
 > 
 > 
 > >--
 > >Mark A. Peters                              ****** ======================
 > >Control Data Corporation                    ****** == "What a save!!!" ==
 > >Internet: map@svl.cdc.com                   ****** == "What an idea!!" ==
____

Gordon Joly                    G6DFY              +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk          UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT

  he said what? - he said "hello" -- that's a bit aggressive isn't it?


