cugini@ICST-ECF.ARPA (10/08/87)
I'm sure I'm gonna regret getting into this (stop me before I philosophize again), but here goes. Put me down as a "yes" vote on the question if all (the vast majority of ?) human minds are flawed. First, to clear away some underbrush: of course the truth of the statement is relative to the meaning of the words used. "grass is green" is false if the referent of "grass" is zebras, ho hum. To "play fair", it seems to me we should attempt to take the most plausible interpretation of what is after all a pithy statement, and contend with that. It seems to me that "mind" normally means "that which enables the owner of the mind to think" - eg if a Martian had a glarp instead of a brain, but could still play a mean game of chess, and discuss the NFL strike, etc, we surely would agree s/he had a mind. Since it is an *essential* feature of a mind that it enables one to think (positivistic formulation: mind IS the ability to think), it seems fair to say that to the extent one thinks imperfectly, one's mind is flawed. I am blithely assuming that "correct thinking" implies at least the ability to formulate accurate descriptions of the world, and manipulate them so as to draw correct conclusions. I don't claim that a mind is nothing but an implementation of logic, but it at least ought to be logically correct as far as it goes. Insofar as the human mind implements unsound logic, it is flawed (lots of people, eg, fall into the fallacy of the converse, multiply incorrectly, etc.) "the human mind is flawed" thus seems to me the same kind of statement as "XYZ cars don't work well". Of course, considered qua phenomenon, an XYZ car is neither good, bad, nor ugly. But insofar as one accepts the bland (?) assumption that the essential purpose of a car, qua car, is to transport you from A to B, via roadway, then the question is merely whether XYZ cars in fact usually succeed or not in this task. The essential purpose of a mind, qua mind, is, among many other things, to draw conclusions correctly from a given set of facts. To the extent it fails to do so, it is flawed. John Cugini <Cugini@icst-ecf.arpa> ------