Started writing TMA05 rather than what I should be doing - reading the last Chapter on the Mind - but as this has to be in by 5th April I needed to start.
I am still forming arguments against Clark and Chalmers proposition that the Mind is external, and I think this is going to happen in three ways.
1. I need to look at their conclusions really closely, but I'm not sure they are necessarily all valid or sound. I think there are various objections raised which are not really objections and are very similar, so by the time you have read through the article they are claiming to have refuted many objections - but possibly objections that don't really exist while ignoring more obvious objections. The suggestion that certain objections look at the situation in a far more complex than necessary way, just seems false and surely it is their need to simplify the Otto / Notebook example than means they have to claim this.
2. I need to look at their hypothesis through a Functionalist view point - so need to read a bit more about functionalism.
3. Then finally, the bulk of the argument must be the flimsiness of their example. I can not see how they can claim that using a notebook means the notebook is part of the cognitive process, reading that the museum is on 52nd Street (or wherever) does not mean the notebook imparts the cognitive process of how to get there, how long it will take, what mode of transport is available etc. the notebook merely provide a cold fact that the brain carries out a cognitive process on. The article was written some time ago and now with iPhones and iPads information is always at your finger tips but are they part of the cognitive process - surely not - they merely provide the data requested by the mind, which is then used by the mind. I suppose if I were to think about it from a computing point of view, if the mind is the CPU, and the notebook is the disc drive holding files and facts - the CPU requests data from the disc drive with which it can then make decisions but the disc drive is not part of the data processing process.
A lot more reading and thinking required........
No comments:
Post a Comment