Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site flairvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!flairvax!kissell From: kissell@flairvax.UUCP (Kevin Kissell) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: No mirror, no dust Message-ID: <561@flairvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 23-Jun-84 21:09:51 EDT Article-I.D.: flairvax.561 Posted: Sat Jun 23 21:09:51 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 25-Jun-84 00:21:17 EDT Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 32 (ahem) Gordon Moffet contributes: > What you have is a brain. What you do is behavior. You are an > organism that responds to AND IS CHANGED BY your environment. > That's all. The rest you've made up or assumed was true because > some dead greek person said it was there. > Show me your "mind" -- demonstrate its existence. I dare you. Well, gosh, there's going to be a bit of a problem here. The "behavior" which constitutes my mind is observable only to me by introspection. That is to say, I am aware that I am aware, and I am aware of myself reflecting, observing, wondering, remembering, and various other activities that are not externally observable. When I speak of my mind as the realm of these activities, others understand what I mean, and so I conclude that I am not alone in my experiences, even though I cannot observe their minds directly. My brain is an organ. My mind is the set of its activities that I am aware of directly or by inference. Problems arise when the mind beholds itself, and takes itself for something else. Kevin D. Kissell Fairchild Research Center Advanced Processor Development uucp: {ihnp4 decvax}!decwrl!\ >flairvax!kissell {ucbvax sdcrdcf}!hplabs!/ "Any closing epigram, regardless of truth or wit, grows galling after a number of repetitions"