Hi Margeret, Margeret wrote: > I don't mean to be rude here- but it may help you to follow some of > the PSYCHE-D discussions on the Zombie argument. Their structure may > help you to unravel some of your philosophical dead-ends. I don't mean > to suggest that we don't all create them for our selves whentrying to > study the mind and various types of cognitive systems. You may alos be > interested in reading Daniel Dennett's argument on Ned Blocks' "On > being a Bat" - you'll find that in Dennett's Consciousness Explained. > (Yep- pretty arrogant title) > First of all, I'm not sure what gave you the idea that we were discussing the consciousness of dogs, or lack thereof. I am familiar with the "What's it like to be a Bat" argument, but it seems to belong in another discussion. Did I ever claim that dogs were conscious, or not conscious? Is there a specific place where I controversially describe the subjective mental states of dogs? And what philosophical dead ends are you referring to?
> > Personally I am of the opinion that it is always a disappointing > scientific pursuit to speak about 'intelligence' in and of itself - or > even compared with other species. Or to prove that various character > or personality traits are indicative of its presence or absence. For > example- saying that two agents have an IQ of 160 are equally > intelligent is really a silly statement. And correlations are merely > that- correlations.What we as scientists should be more interested in > are causal dynamics. The structure and functions that interplay to > allow for behaviour to appear intelligent. And in all of this we > really are caught in evolution's stranglehold - because we only 'see' > what works. I think it was either von Galsersfeld or Leo Apostel who > claimed that "The environment is held for extinction". What ever is > not selected for is selected out. So, we have only our postulates. > Without agreeing or disagreeing with what you say here (and heaven forbid, without being rude), I am not sure why you are telling me this. Are you trying to argue with something specific that someone else has said in the discussion? If so, what? To summarize the state of affairs, I am not producing a "dogie-IQ", rather a list of qualitative features. I think comparison between human and dog intelligence (for example) is meaningful because we can point to qualitative features that humans and dogs both possess, or that humans possess and dogs do not (and vice versa). All normal humans share the same qualitative features. All normal dogs share the same qualitative features. > In terms of the role of emotions in contributing towards reasoning, > you may wish to do some serious neuropsyche reading. You could follow > Le Douz, Damasio and that bunch just as a start. I don't mean this to > be rude- it's just a very old and rather precarious Descartesian > supposition that you refer to when you discuss the role of emotions > and the 'extent' to which they contribute to reason. That's the same > mad-making question as trying to figure out exactly how much of the > visual cortex is involved when we do math, for e.g. > Let me quote exactly what I said: "Its debatable to what extent emotions actually contribute to intelligence ;->. Again, I'll have to think about this...". I wrote one sentence. I left the matter open for further discussion. I used a winking smiley, for crying out loud! I was not stating a serious position!!! > > You allude to the need to integrate some "theories of behaviour": > Crikey Moshe! This stunned me! Haven't you heard of Psychology, > Sociology, Political theory, history, theology etc etc... they all > give Theories of Behaviour. > Did you read the original post, or the actual list I wrote (http://www.republicofheaven.org/doglevel.html)? I am referring to theories that dogs have of the way other entities behave. Did you understand this? If so, what stunned you? > But perhaps I didn't get what you REALLY mean? Maybe not, hope this clarifies things... Cheers, Moshe ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
