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Critique of pure Reasoner

Essays and commentary related to topics in Tom Reasoner's "Truth and Beauty" blog

Thursday, August 26, 2004

A quick note on thoughts

I expect I'll write something more comprehensive later, but I wanted to sketch a general reply to Nathanael's discussion of thoughts.

It's true thoughts are immaterial - they are constitutionally informational, and the physical component of thought only matters in that the causal properties of the medium instantiate the information processing topology. Minds are always and essentially logical entities.

It still means physical processes execute our thoughts. We don't experience our thoughts as physical processes, of course, but why would we think our thoughts would seem physically intantiated to us? One can define "thought" in an essentialist manner so as to rule out any 'reductionist' account, but what's the motivation?

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