"Ray Scanlon" <rscanlon at wsg.net> writes:
>Neil Rickert wrote in message <71ofsg$p01 at ux.cs.niu.edu>...
>>The problem with this is that it conflicts with ordinary usage. The
>>usual idea is that the soul is spiritual or immaterial, whereas the
>>mind might well be material - something like an executing process or
>>virtual machine. Since I don't believe in souls, I prefer the term
>>mind.
>What is "ordinary usage"? "Mind" is widely used among religious people (the
>majority by any reasonable count) to refer to the part of the soul that
>thinks and reasons. They would say that the soul also feels and decides. and
>is thus more than just mind.
But mind is widely used by non-religious people, many of whom deny that there
is such a thing as a soul.
>"Might well be material". The brain is certainly material and one who has no
>use for soul might easily limit himself to "brain" when others say "mind".
Some people might say that a virtual machine, as created in a
computing system, is not material. It depends on how strictly you
use the word "material". In any case, it is no threat to science if
the mind is thought of as something like a virtual machine.
>When I observe the direction in which neuroscience is headed, I see no other
>outcome than a brain that thinks and decides. Talk of an "executing process"
>is just babble by those who will not undertake the labor of "hard" science.
Then I guess all computer scientists just babble, because the
computer science literature is full of talk of executing processes.