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From: jim@ism780b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: No mirror, no dust
Message-ID: <45@ism780b.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 00:23:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780b.45
Posted: Wed Aug  8 00:23:10 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Aug-84 01:35:28 EDT
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Nf-ID: #R:iuvax:-160000200:ism780b:27500033:000:2705
Nf-From: ism780b!jim    Jul 31 12:25:00 1984

>> From: dsaker@iuvax.UUCP (Daryel Akerlind, ...ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!dsaker)
>>
>> Could those denying the existence of mind please give an account of
>> mental experience?
>
>If I am denying the existence of `mind' then why should I define what
>I assert is not there?

You may assert that there are no mental experiences.  I personally have
what I call mental experiences.  I experience a self-awareness that
no one outside of me can verify exists.  If I take a poll, I believe almost
all of the subject bodies will open their mouths and project vocal sounds
which can be interpreted as asserting that they represent egos with such
experiences.  The simplest model I have is that those other egos do exist
and that they have experiences like mine.  As for your denial, my model
suggests that either you are either a) dissembling, b) confused,
c) a different sort of entity which acts just like it has an ego but does
not.  The latter seems very unlikely to me, and since I can't verify it
one way or another, I will model you as having an ego with mental experiences.

>> I am in a laboratory, looking at a red square.  The scientists around me
>> determine the frequency of the light entering my eye, exciting the rods and
>> cones in my retina.  Other scientists trace the firings of my neurons  (yes,
>> my shaved head looks like a pin cushion)  and observe how the electro-
>> chemical messages make their way from my retina to various parts of my brain,
>> interact with the general activity their, and so on and so on.
>> But all of that neuronal activity is distinct from my experience of seeing
>> the red square.
>
> Let us say that neurological activity is the domain on neurologists;
> I am talking about behavior, and I need no `mind' (or neurons, for that
> matter) to explain behavior.

HE WASN'T TALKING ABOUT BEHAVIOR.  He was talking about internal experience.
Your fingers may continue to hit keys which read as saying that Gordon
Moffett has no internal experience, but I will continue to believe that
they are driven by a dissembling ego.

> Perhaps it is subtle because it is so ill-defined (which we seem to
> agree on).  But the burden of proof on the existence or definition
> of mind is on the mentalists, not the behaviorists.  I am happy to
> simply refute the need for mentalist explanations of behavior.

I claim that I have mental behavior.  The only way you can refute the claim
is to say I am lying.  You claim you do not have mental behavior.
The only way I can refute it is by saying you are lying.  You can tell me
that it is only my behavior, and that I have no ego, but that claim *must*
be predicated upon the lie that you have no ego either.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)