Re: The Mind/Body Problem

From: Bollons Nicholas (
Date: Mon Feb 26 1996 - 14:28:44 GMT

sh> People were "created" by us too, so that can't be what decides whether
sh> or not something has a mind. Perhaps you mean "designed" by us: But why
sh> should that have anything to do with it? Everyone says this, but no one
sh> gives a reason why being designed by someone with a mind should
sh> disqualify a machine from having a mind. It's almost as if you were
sh> saying that if someone knew how WE were designed (i.e., could build
sh> us) then WE wouldn't have a mind either...
Perhaps the person who designed us knew what a mind was (I'm not
religious but am thinking hypothetically) and so therefore was able to
install it into our being. It's becoming clear that we do not know what
the 'mind' is and are therefore unable to put it into these machines
that can be created.

If say the 'mind' was a physical entity (call it a quirk - like the
physicist's Quark) and we could see and manipulate it. Could we then
take the quirk out of some 'being' and put it into a machine or maybe
even create it and throw it around add lib ?(here you go Mr Toaster
have a mind).

Science Fiction explores the idea of robots that have minds of there
own (Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitch Hikers Guide etc.) and Steve
was talking about these ideas becoming fiction. But it is a little
difficult to discuss and control something that seems to have no
physical identity, is un-definable, illusive, and seems not to 'fit
into' any scientific explanation. And then try to put it into a machine
??. We first of all must get at least some grasp as to the being or
thing (mind) that we have (and maybe animals) and that machines do

Maybe we do not want to build machines with minds anyway ? They may
become 'wiser' than us (we like to assume that we are the most advanced
species on the planet) and topple us from power. The Terminator ?

(And no: I'm not a S.F nerd it's just that they were useful examples)

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