Re: MD mind without matter

From: PzEph (etinarcardia@lineone.net)
Date: Sat Dec 09 2000 - 00:14:57 GMT


Peter,
No apology called for!
Thanks for putting my own point of veiw rather well there, though I've yet
to satisfy myself that I understand your heretical monk.

ttfn

Pzeph.

> From: "Peter Lennox" <peter@lennox01.freeserve.co.uk>
> Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 22:47:03 -0000
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Subject: Re: MD mind without matter
>
> Apologies!
> In fact, arguably, I might as well say that thoughts cause neural activity!
> Further,
> "Thought is a priority of matter" was the blasphemy offered by Julien Offroy
> de La Mettrie (1709 - 1751)......
> (sounds like the universe trying to understand itself....)
> cheers
> ppl
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "PzEph" <etinarcardia@lineone.net>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Sent: 08 December 2000 21:08
> Subject: Re: MD mind without matter
>
>
>> ELEPHANT TO PETER RE FUNNY THEORIES:
>>
>> PETER WROTE:
>>> Are you seriously suggesting that theories to the effect that "there is
> no
>>> thought without some (as yet unspecified) neural activity", are eclipsed
> by
>>> theories which propose that "mind and brain are only very loosely
> connected
>>> [and the latter doesn't 'cause' the former] " ?
>>
>> ELEPHANT:
>> No. I don't propose a counter theory, I simply point out that the "neural
>> activity causes thoughts" theory IS a theory, and has serious problem with
>> it which Beleivers are reluctant to acknowledge (eg, problems about
>> criteria, definition of thought, problems about what counts as evidence,
>> etc).
>>
>> You seem to see the available options as: (1) neurons cause thought, and
>> (2), thoughts are independant of Neurons. Well, what about (3): car parts
>> don't cause cars, but cars are pretty much dependant on them for driving
>> along. Neurons can be part of the picture, why not? What I'm against is
>> just assuming that they are the whole of it. A good picture, which I'm by
>> no means ready to offer complete for competition with the defective
>> pictures, would IMO acknowledge that thought is a large continuous process
>> taking in (in a circle of stimulus and response which is all of it
> thought)
>> the whole world. That wouldn't be either unpragmatic or anti MOQ, I
>> suggest, although it would involve some hard thinking about what we mean
> by
>> 'thought'. I seem to recommend this classic article about twice a week,
> so
>> here goes again.... John Dewey: The Reflex arc concept in Psychology.
> It's
>> on the net at:
>>
>> http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca/~lward/Dewey/DEWEY_03.HTML
>>
>>
>> Further, it seems you think I'm a mind/world dualist, possiting two
>> substances which don't connect. I deny it. The only people positing any
>> substances in this discussion are the ones who think that brain-stuff
>> explains or determines mind stuff. I haven't offered an explanation, I'm
>> pushing no kind of reductionism, and in making my observations I assert no
>> primary stuff. It's just that I've noticed that one supposedly
>> 'explanatory' theory does not, in fact, work.
>>
>> Now there's a radical kind of empiricism for you!
>>
>> Let's have Quality science with clear criteria and definitions that is
>> supported by evidence, and not a religion of neurological psychology.
>>
>>
>>
>> Pzeph
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
>
>
>
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