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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
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"Any closing epigram, regardless of truth or wit, grows galling
 after a number of repetitions"