On 18 Nov 2013, at 14:41, Roger Clough wrote:
Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes are completely different on the
relationship
between mind and matter See
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/#DesSpiLei
Spinoza was a monist, who believed that mind and matter were one.
Are you sure? It seems to me that Spinoza defended what is called
today "neutral monism": the idea that both matter and mind (which are
taken as obviously very different) are coming from one different
thing. Computationalism is neutral monist in that sense, where the
"different thing" is the arithmetical reality.
Descartes believed that mind and matter are totally different
OK. But Descartes, imo, became aware of the depth of the rabbit hole
this entails. It is hard to say, because Descartes was limited in his
prose by the authoritarianism of his epoch. I read him in between the
lines.
Leibniz beleived that mind was a monad or mental aspect of matter.
And this makes him still a materialist, by which I mean a believer in
some ontologically independent substance.
Bertrand Ruseell said that there are two forms of knowing:
a) Knowing scientifically or objectively (knowing by description)
Example: you know who Obama is from the newspapers.
b) Knowing by acquaintance or experience (knowing subjectively)
Example: you know who Obama is because you have met him.
Yes, and such a difference is made very clear in the 1p/3p distinction
that we have to take into account to understand that materialism is
eventually not compatible with mechanism.
It can be translated in arithmetic, and Bertrand Russell's distinction
is well captured by the difference between Bp & p and Bp. Note that
this would not work without the incompleteness result.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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