Matthew_C.2 comments on Hand vs. Fingers - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 March 2008 12:36AM

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Comment author: Matthew_C.2 30 March 2008 01:39:01PM 0 points [-]

As pertains to brains, we have reasonable inferences that the mind is strictly anchored in a physical substance. Among the oldest I'm aware of is Heraclitis' observation that hitting someone in the head causes stupor, confusion, etc, so the mind probably resides there.

Yes and when I hit my radio with a rock it might stop working, change the station, if I rip out transistors it might make the sound distorted, etc. That really doesn't prove that the song is stored inside the radio, does it?

If you are interested in reality instead of just fitting in with current intellectual fashion, you really need to step outside the echo chamber sometime and engage with the best arguments against your current positions, not simply flail against strawmen.

And a special point for commentor Richard above -- you have an interesting and mostly thoughtful blog and you do a good job pointing out some reasons why eliminative materialism is a problematic belief. But then you stumble badly by claiming that only the only sane non-reductionist position is that mind arises from the brain. Claiming that people with different ideas than you must be insane is a position that has often been expressed in the history of intellectual discussion, but almost never by those on the correct side of a debate. . .

Anyway, I won't debate this point here any further because this blog is not interested in examining its philosophical biases towards materialism. I only wanted to point out an interesting reference book to those readers here not already utterly convinced that their beliefs are correct and their opponents not sane -- I know there are lurkers here that fit that description. . .