Re: death of the mind.

From: Allan C Cybulskie (allan.c.cybulskie_at_yahoo.ca)
Date: 07/15/04 

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:25:45 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Longley" <David@longley.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups:
comp.ai.philosophy,bionet.neuroscience,sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.meta,com
p.ai.neural-nets
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: death of the mind.

> Here, once again, we have a *maths* graduate making a 'psychological
> appraisal' of what he has been told by an applied (behavioural)
> psychologist viz-a-viz the former's limited awareness of the
> contingencies controlling his behaviour and the consequences.
>
> This characteristic behaviour is why, over the years, I have frequently
> referred to Rickert's behaviour as an illustrative example of the
> intensional, solipsistic folly which all too many maths and "computer
> science" folk appear to be so prone to.

Yes, David, we generally do tend to insist that we know our own minds and
intentions better than other people do, because we have better access to and
spend much more time observing ourselves than others do. If Neil says that
he places no value on your words, his view is more credible than yours.
Part of the reasoning for this is that I can, in fact, alter my words and
behaviour such that I "fool" you, and present an impression to you and
others that would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Thus, I can fool you,
and still know what I really mean. So how can you say that your view is
necessarily better than mine of that?

Moreover, maths and computer science folk don't think about such things as
professionals, but only as actual people living in the world and judging
their own experiences. That you promote a theory that dismisses all
common-sense experience for no actual reason speaks volumes.

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