Russ, Actually, I didnt write what you are countering, here, but I will defend it anyway.
Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Russ Abbott To: [email protected];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 6/21/2009 4:18:52 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge See below. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/ On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other people live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot be true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these conversations is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental life. If you cannot know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide whether or not you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there any way to make that more obvious?!? I see four problem. The argument mixes epistemology with ontology. It's one thing to discuss what we can and cannot know -- which tends to change with technology and our level of sophistication. It's another to discuss what is. Unless you want to take the position that one cannot talk about what is and can only talk about what can be known, these two should be kept separate. nst -->I thought that Russ's position was that one cannot IN PRINCIPLE know what is truly in another's mind An argument can be made that nothing can really be known. After all, what is it to know something? No matter what one does, one can never be sure. nst --> Yes, but such sweeping arguments are without force; since they apply to all knowledge, they dont give one any information about any special features of consciousness, or anything else for that matter. More over, they self distruct, since they apply to themselves. To know something implies a knower, which relies on a mental life. nst --> Just to re-iterate that our argument is not about the existence of mental life; it is about what we actually are talking about when we talk about mental life. I think we are talking about third person things, or things that a third person could in principle "see". Simply making the argument and expecting someone to understand it makes no sense unless one assumes a mental life in the speaker and the listener. Without that, all we have are photons generated by a CRT or bits stored in a computer, etc. nst --> Again, I disagree. What is "mental" adding, here? Without LIFE, all we have are photons etc.
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