From: "Mark P. Line" 
Subject: Re: materialism sucks
Date: 1997/04/12
Message-ID: <[email protected]>#1/2


Ken Morton wrote:
> 
> Mark P. Line wrote:

> > Knowledge of the CNS and of evolutionary biology is
> > like knowing about the behavior of gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen,
> > without being able to look at liquids. Until we get some kind of handle
> > on how we can objectively observe the mind (the emergent liquid, not
> > the gases it emerged from), I don't think any amount of
> > theory-constraining or "informed speculation" will do us much good.
> 
> I think the analogy with water may break down here. (Please bear with
> me, I didn't get much sleep last night). First, can't we infer things
> about the mind by observing behavior (which would include listening to
> people talk about the "content" of their mind)?

We can try. The best a person seems to be able to do in this regard is
to capture what appear to be correlations between her _own_ behavior (as
perceived by herself) and her _own_ mind (as perceived introspectively),
and to ASSUME that those correlations apply to other people as well.
It's a well-known observation that such correlations do not always
correspond to inferences made by others about that person's mental
goings-on, based on her behavior.

I don't know of any way of generalizing (in the scientific sense) 
such apparent correlations to subjects other than oneself.


> I wholeheartedly agree with both you and Phil Roberts that the "mind"
> can and should be studied in its own right, whatever the "mind" is, but
> just want to add that I think we can be guided, informed, and probably
> constrained, by looking at the CNS and its natural history.

How would Linnaeus' descriptive work have been better guided, more
informed or more appropriately constrained if he had had contact with a
time traveller who explained to him everything worth knowing about 25th
century molecular biology?


-- Mark

(Mark P. Line  --  Bellevue, Washington  --  )