Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA20902 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 16 Oct 2001 06:12:03 +0100 Message-ID: <001201c15600$89286840$6788b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Memes in Brains Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 22:07:57 -0700 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000F_01C155C5.D8ECCB40" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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[corrected]
Derek:
Everything I ahve been taught is about analysing observables, and
unfortunately minds aren't in that category.
Minds are observable both directly and indirectly. We can observe our own minds directly and those of other people indirectly. According to Nicholas Humphrey, an expert in chimpanzee behavior, the capacity to infer the minds of others based on awareness of one's own mentality gave an edge to some chimps over others. If you recognize that a potential competitor has a mind, you can learn to anticipate and even manipulate the thoughts that appear in that mind. This is why reflexive consciousness was selected for among our primate ancestors. The observability of mentality, both direct and by inference, is essential to its evolution among primates, including us.
That we observe our minds doesn't mean we observe our brains. To observe your brain, you'd need two things-- a mirror and a hacksaw.
Ted:
.......if so what is this "you" that's so positive? Not only do we observe
mentality but mentality is what does the observing.
Derek:
I don't know what this "me" is. I have some gut feelings, but nothing
approaching a scientific idea. I know what "others" are (oh God, this is
startingto sound like Sartre, isn't it?), in the sense of corporeal bodies,
but I'm no more certain about the reality of other minds than I am about
my own.
What is it, precisely, that's "certain" or "uncertain"? You're implying your own mental existence even as you deny it.
Derek:
I agree that all my observations (scientific or otherwise) present
themselves to me as qualia - all the figures on the screen, all the graphics
etc, all are products of my brain in some way, but it's easier if we stick to
observing stuff that we at least know has some tangible reality.
A thing is real when it continues to exist regardless of whether or not we continue believing in it. This clearly applies to the mind, which is alive and well even after years of behaviorism and now eliminativism. Belief itself is a mental trait. To believe that mentality is unreal is to assert its reality.
Derek:
In summary
minds observing minds - very difficult
minds observing mindless objects - a bit easier
If objects are somehow more tangible or fundamental or "solid" than minds, then we can understand minds by reducing them to brains. The "mind-body problem" is thus the question of how exactly the brain accounts for mental traits.
But trying to understand mentality in terms of matter makes no sense when we have no idea what matter is in the first place. As Chomsky says, in his essay, "Language and Nature," our common sense notions of matter began caving in way back in the 17th century. Matter was believed to operate entirely according to contact mechanics. Then Newton came along and demonstrated that gravity acts at a distance.
"Newton exorcised the machine, leaving the ghost intact. Furthermore,
nothing has replaced the machine. Rather, the sciences went on to postulate
ever more exotic and occult entities: chemical elements whose 'number and
nature' will probably never be known (Lavoisier), fields and waves, curved
space-time, the notions of quantum theory, infinite one-dimensional strings
in space of high dimensionality, and even stranger notions.
"The criterion of conformity to common sense vanished along with contact
mechanics. There is also no coherent notion of material, physical, and so
on. Hence there is no mind-body problem, no question about reduction of the
mental to the physical, or even unification of the two domains. The
contemporary orthodoxies seem unintelligible, along with the efforts to
refute them. Advocates and critics are in the same (sinking) boat, and no
reconciliation is needed, or possible."
Ted
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