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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <CwLI5D.5Jn@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <CwJLJF.Irz@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <35sorq$8p4@newsbf01.news.aol.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 18:32:01 GMT
Lines: 42

In article <35sorq$8p4@newsbf01.news.aol.com>,
DrewDalupa <drewdalupa@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <CwJLJF.Irz@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca
>(Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>Knowing what are physico-chemical
>>reasons of certain behaviors is already being utilized, for instance by
>>certain medication, prozac being one example, or pharmacological
>treatments
>>of sexual offenders - another. In these cases a particular behavior is
>>explained not by beliefs or desires, but by a chemical state of the
>brain.
>
>You really don't think that these sexual offenders have any control
>whatsoever over their behavior?  Perhaps the *desires* are explained
>by a chemical state of the brain.  But the behavior needs more
>than the strength of a desire to explain it.
>
Probably so. The human behavior is certainly too complex to be explained
by few single variables (like concentration of a number of chemicals in
the brain). However, my point was that the knowledge of physico-chemical
proceses in the brain does contribute to understanding behavior, even 
though our knowledge of physics and chemistry of the brain is at a very
primitive state considering the complexity of its structure. Concepts
like beliefs, desires etc. may have their use in ordering regularities and
correlations between input and output of the brain. For instance: the longer
a young healthy male is kept in isolation, the more will be his subsequent
behavior concentrated around finding a partner for mating. If you want to
classify this behavior as due to a desire, that's fine, but what reason 
have you got to think that this is more than a name for a class of 
physico-chemical states of the brain?

>Edward
>
Andrzej


-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
