Re: Friam Digest, Vol 61, Issue 18

[Nick Thompson]

Glen,

Thanks for being willing to talk this out with me. Here is what I think.
Because  I am (believe it or not!) a scientist, and because I believe that
all science ... and certainly all science that jumps ahead ... is based in
metaphor, and because I believe it's hard to talk about anything without
revealing a metaphor, the language we choose to talk about things becomes
really important to me.  So once we recognize that "in" in all its uses
with respect to the mean really refers to something quite different from
what is usually called to "mind" by that word, should we choose another.  I
know half the list is now fuming,  "What is the matter with that Thompson
fellow;  WE all know what you mean!"  But, on the contrary.  I bet that I
can show you that you DON'T each know what the other means.  In fact, part
of our use of such terminological conventions is just to bypass the
tremendous work that would be involved in trying to figure out and
articulate our different meanings.  

I want to do that work.  I believe in that work.  In fact, I believe that
UNTIL we do that work, we can't make much empirical progress  because we
don't know what data to look for.  I will carry on below at ===>

Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> So, either the self is material,
>
> Or, "in" is understood in some way other than that it occupies a
> container.
 
Yes, by "inner self", I was talking about Mikhail's latter "me".

 
Mikhail Gorelkin wrote:
> [second me] is the product of thinking of the first one (me as I
> think about me)
 
So, I do not intend "inner" to mean "inside a container". I mean
"inner" in the sense of the mental constructs we build when thinking
about our selves. A model of our selves as viewed from within.
 
Both "me"s are part of the self, which is exactly the point I was trying
to argue with Mikhail, neither the physical self nor this endo-self are
less real than the other.

==> OK.  I would, if I could, deny you both "endo" and "within" because
they have the same meaning as "in".  

But this passage -- "when thinking about ourselves"-- calls into play the
notion of reflexivity.  Isn't this Meade?  the Self as thinking (the I ) as
distinguished by the Self as the object of thought (the "me":).  

Now HERE is a question I have wanted to ask a group of people like the
FRIAM list.

If you were to go about programming a computer to think about itself, how
would you do it?

What would be the imputs from what?  

My suspicion has always been that the notion of "the self thinking about
the self" is incoherent.  That no matter how hard you guys try, you could
not agree on a computer routine that would literally fill the bill for
genuine, literal, reflexivity.  

I may make a thread of this in the Noodlers Corner, when I get back.  .

Nick


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