Re: Introspection and Explanation

From: Walker, Guy (ghw296@soton.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 10 1997 - 20:43:35 GMT


I am also a little unsure as to the procedure of skywriting, but if you
feel my reply to Alex's, er, 'comments' are worthy then feel free to
archive them as you wish.

The comments appear to beg the question of what is entailed in the idea
of the philosophy of the mind? I would say (as someone who does not
know a great deal on this subject) that cognitive science, like many
"sciences' (perhaps) leads us past what the mind can and cannot do in
its pursuit of reductionist truth - surely this could include a stab at
"what' the mind is? Following this, I would like to argue with the
supposition that no sound byte can holistically describe the mind. I am
not presuming this to be true, but could not the mind be just a very
very complex data and information processing unit? We seem to be
struggling with the notion of what it is to 'feel' - but following the
computer analogy, could feeling just be the innervation of an immensely
complex hierarchy of neural structures and networks? A more
misanthropic view would be to propose that can't we, as humans, accept
that we are not some kind of divine noble creature linked via
theoretical physics to the universe, and just abide by the fact that we
could be just too complicated for current technology or modes of
thought to understand at a base level.

Nevertheless, I would like to propose a sound byte that 'might' be able
to explain the mind holistically - mind = dynamic quasi-synergic multi
level hybrid data and information processing unit. What - do - you -
reckon !?



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