fox_emma at my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<78730n$9ht$1 at nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <36a5d8ea.0 at ns2.wsg.net>,
> "Ray Scanlon" <rscanlon at wsg.net> wrote:
>>> Our answer to the soul (mind)/body problem is that a material universe
has
>> no need of soul. We leave that to the philosophers, they may worry it to
>> their heart's content. Our position for purposes of brain explanation is
>> that there is soul (mind) but it has no part to play in a material
account
>> of brain action.
>>What on earth is brain action without mind? Your statement needs to be
>clarified, can you give an example of a brain action that does not in some
way
>involve the mind?
See Chalmers for an argument for the zombie.
The soul (mind) is only aware of some of the neural activity of the nervous
system. It is a common event in life to proceed as an automaton, to "lose
yourself in your thoughts", and find yourself pawing in a drawer, say, with
no recollection of what you are looking for. One is not ordinarily aware of
the actions of the stomach, the lungs, or the heart although all of these
are driven by the nervous system.
Or think of the mathematician who, on stepping off a curb, is suddenly aware
of the solution to some theorem with no memory of how it came to him.
>> We direct our attention to the nervous system and, in particular, the
>> mammalian nervous system The brain is an artifact of anatomy, the nervous
>> system is the basic reality.
>>That humans think, is a basic reality; that other mammals probably do, is
>another.
That brains think and decide is part of my reality. What IS required, in my
opinion, are interneurons. I make a distinction between those nervous
systems that are so primitive that they contain no interneurons and those
that do. I hold that all animals that have interneurons do think, at what
level is another matter.
>> We should leave soul (mind, self, intelligence, whatever) to the
theologians
>> and proceed with the design of a machine that can think and decide using
>> only neuromimes. As a first step we examine the brain to see how the
neurons
>> do these things. If we can explain the how the brain thinks, how it
decides,
>> we shall know how to design the machine.
>>How will you know when it is thinking or making decisions? What will you
>compare it with if you discount soul/mind?
I hope you are not confusing think and deciding with being aware of thinking
and deciding. A brain thinks. Whether of not there is a soul associated with
the brain that is aware of the thinking is a question for philosophy and
ultimately religion.
Whether a soul should come to be associated with a machine is irrelevant to
the design. In any event it is my opinion that no such machine shall ever be
constructed for reasons of cost and time.
Ray
Those interested in how the brain works might look at
www.wsg.net/~rscanlon/brain.html