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Article 7583 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
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References: <burt.721365558@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <BxHMy3.tu@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Nov10.114206.3065JPII@tygra.Michigan.COM>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:01:26 GMT
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In article <1992Nov10.114206.3065JPII@tygra.Michigan.COM> dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad) writes:
>In article <BxHMy3.tu@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr) writes:
>>the set of phenomena that we perceive to be a cat may or may not
>>correspond to a single noumenon, what I think your calling an
>>"identity."  There is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence
>>between the items on the menu and the items of food, to use your
>>metaphor.  In fact, we don't have any way of finding out a whole hell
>>of a lot about the food and we're better off talking about the menu.
>
>Hmm.  I'm a bit confused.  It seems to me that there are three things
>here.  First, the "noumena" or "identities", the real things.  Second,
>the percepts, our sensations of them.  And third, the words which we
>assign to them.
>
>Now, I had taken the menu to represent the linguistic aspect, the words,
>and the food to represent the real objects in the metaphor above.  But
>then your last sentence ignores the percepts?  Perhaps you interpret the
>metaphor differently, with menu equaling words and food equaling percepts,
>or menu equaling percepts and food equaling "noumena"?  Either of these
>would clear up your argument to an extent, for me.
>
>But I don't want to put words in your mouth.  What did you mean, and do
>you agree with the division of objects, percepts, words?
>

In the above interpretation of the metaphor, I was using only noumena
and phenomena, or what you're calling objects and percepts.  Perhaps
the original poster of the metaphor had your third category, words, in
mind, but I don't really see why such a third category would be
necessary.  It would seem that words would be phenomena.  By
"phenomena" I mean absolutely all perceptions, including "internal"
perception, or apperception.  



-- 
Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"


