From: dpipes@spica.srg (Dave Pipes x4552)
Subject: Mind/Not Mind
Organization: just me
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 18:58:41 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic

In article <1992Sep2.211350.3125@Princeton.EDU> ydobyns@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (York H. Dobyns) writes:
>In article <1992Sep02.180809.16211@srg.srg.af.mil> dpipes@spica.srg (Dave Pipes x4552) writes:
>[...]
>>For example, there is no good evidence that the mind exists, so any
>>psychological theories around start out on shaky ground.  
>
>This remark just won my personal prize for the most philosophically
>ill-founded statement I've ever seen on the net.

Oh, good grief.  It is a point of argument, albeit an extreme one.  It is
a central assertion of strict behaviorism, and one of the usual discussions
of functionalist assertions.  I take it you are not familiar with the 
philosophy of mind up through the 1980's?  I assure you that this is *not*
an unfounded statement.
>
>I, personally, have unimpeachable evidence for the existence of at least
>one mind: my own. I experience it directly. It is, in fact, the *only*
>empirical fact of which I can be absolutely certain--even if every one
>of my perceptions is a delusion, a la brains-in-vats or Cartesian demon
>theories, *some* sentience must exist in order to be deluded.

But you do not have any evidence that it is not, for example, a set of
behaviors which produces the *illusion* of consciousness.  You cannot point
to any physical location for it.  You cannot show it exists in other people.
All of these are common points of philosophical discussion.

How do you know that your sentience, your self-awareness, is actually a
mind, and not something else?  This is a very old, very difficult question.
What do you think Descartes wanted to know?  Obviously he thought it 
possible to argue against the mind, right?
>
>Granted, I do not and cannot have anything like the same evidence that
>anyone *else* has a mind. Other people's minds are an inference from
>behavior, and one of the important pieces of evidence is that they
>*claim* to have minds--everyone I know to have commented on the subject
>makes essentially the same claim as I have above, regarding
>self-existence. (With the possible exception of David Hume.)

Some people, notably early-20th century behaviorists, have argued that they
do not have minds, merely the illusion thereof.  Just as an example.
>
>Until now. In asserting that there is no good evidence that the mind
>exists, Dave Pipes seems to be claiming that he does *not* share the
>experience of personal awareness I had naively assumed to be a human
>universal. Is this true, Dave? (I will do him the courtesy of continuing
>to talk as though Dave were a person, though he's just implicitly asserted
>that he isn't.) I don't see any consistent way that a being possessing
>the experience of self-awareness can claim that there is no good evidence
>for the existence of mind.

Of course this is not true.  I experience what I easily refer to as a mind,
and it seems to be universal in humans.  What it is really, a mind or a set
of behaviors or something else, that is debated.  Self-awareness *seems* to
be a good inidcation that there are minds, but other possibilities exist.

I assumed a viewpoint FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT!  I do *not* hold this 
viewpoint!  I merely pointed out that it could be argued, and that makes
any study based on assumptions about the nature of the mind suspect, to one
degree or another.  You will admit that a behaviorist interpretation of
erratic behavior could be radically different from a Freudian one, right?
That was the point, that it is hard to base an entire science on unproven
assumptions.  Even if the results are reasonable.
>
>(On the other hand, an object that was somehow intelligent and socially
>functional without being self-aware would have every reason to make such
>a claim--given the difficulty of establishing the existence of other
>minds, even to beings that *are* self-aware and so can define "mind"
>ostensively, an intelligence lacking self-awareness would be justified
>in the most extreme skepticism about the phenomenon. I confess to being
>skeptical in turn of the concept of "intelligence without
>self-awareness," and point to the Turing test as a reason for doubting
>that the phrase can even be meaningful.)

Note that you are equating self-awareness with mind.  This should raise
some questions in your mind :-), about things like what self-awareness
really is, how it relates to intelligence and behavior and whether, say,
my cat or dog has a mind.  Just things to think about.

So my assertion is the least founded philosophical assertion you have seen 
on the net?  You haven't been reading the right groups :-).  Email me if 
you would like to discuss this further, or for some references on the above
topics.

>York Dobyns		ydobyns@phoenix.princeton.edu

David Pipes
robear@digex.com is the correct return address
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic