Posted by
Jochen Fromm-4 on
May 04, 2010; 7:30pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Beat-poet-defends-the-scientific-method-tp4993619p5005223.html
Please excuse my ignorance, but
don't we know it already? I think we
know a lot about "What DOES go on
in the skull, and what is an intelligible way
to talk about it".
Intentions are essential to understand
decisions (Intentionality is the mark
of the vital, right ?). It becomes clear
why a person has done something, if it
is examined in court, or if we know
the goals, intentions and motives of
the person.
He has turned left because he had the
intention to go to work or to buy a book
in a nearby bookstore. He has turned
right because he had the spontaneous
goal to buy an icecream or to follow a
beautiful woman.
Therefore, the language that people
already use, which means common sense
reasoning about beliefs, desires, intentions
and goals, seems to explain the behavior
quite well, and it is consistent with
neurophysiological structures (even if
it sometimes suggests homunculi, if we
take it literally, which is wrong).
The thing that has confused philosophers
for centuries is that mental states like beliefs,
desires, intentions are both, abstract and
concrete. In daily language they are abstract
terms, which can only be used and unterstood
with metaphors. But in the brain, these abstract
terms become concrete patterns and complex
processes of real neural assemblies. We know
that beliefs and intentions are located in form
of complex neural assemblies in the higher sensoric
and motoric regions (the prefontal cortex),
respectively.
Gilbert Ryle admits in his book "The
concept of mind" (where he dismisses
the idea of a single self or soul), that
we already "possess a wealth of information
about minds" (page 7, introduction).
Don't you agree?
-J.
----- Original Message -----
From: ERIC P. CHARLES
To: Robert J. Cordingley
Cc: Group ; Th
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 1:03 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] Behaviorism [was Beat poet]
[..] As Skinner would put it, the question is: What DOES go on in the
skull, and what is an intelligible way to talk about it? The obvious answer
is that the only things going on in the skull are physiological. For
example, if one asks why someone chose to go left instead of right at a stop
sign, [..]
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