🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <14352@s.ms.uky.edu> you write:
>Hwa Jin Bae has written on Descartes; another and I have tried to correct
>some of his misunderstandings.  This is my final contribution to the 
>exchange.  M. Bae states that the discussion is becoming too philosophically
>oriented for this group, if so, I apologize for wasting the readers' time.
>The general problem is that M. Bae lacks an understanding of Descartes'
>work and refuses to believe that others may be correct or have a better
>grasp of Descartes.
>

i lack understanding of descartes' work but i do not refuse to believe
that others may be correct or have a better grasp of descartes.  i'm
perfectly willing to give you a chance to prove to me that you indeed
possess better understanding of his work.  since you seem to think that
you do, perhaps it is so.  i'm not yet convinced of that.  if you're
to condemn someone of ignorance you're entitled to your opinion but please
do not accuse me of refusing to believe that anyone else might have a
better understanding of descartes than i.  feel free to quote any remark
that i made which suggested that i did.  i certainly don't recall having
said anything that suggested my supposed arrogance.  i don't believe
that i have full understanding of descartes.  i was explaining what i
undertood of him -- N.B. *my* understanding, as yours is *yours*, who
is to say which is truly correct?  -- not condemning others' of ignorance
or refusing to listen to me, as you've done here.  it saddens me to think
that anyone who has read the meditation can bring himself down to doing 
such things in public out of sheer misunderstanding.

nevertheless, if i offended in any way that might have cause this kind
of response i apologize for that.  i will not, however, apologize for
my "ignorance" and "distorted" understanding.  my opinions and 
my interpretations of others' works are my own and who cannot force-
feed me into taking your views without rigorous and convincing argument.
we have not gone through that.  you've stated some facts which seemed
very fragmented and inconsistent to me and i stated a few bits of 
my understanding that was differently conceived/interpreted.

>In article <861@wrs.wrs.com>, hwajin@wrs.wrs.com (Hwa Jin Bae) writes:
>> In article <14319@s.ms.uky.edu> rshelby@ms.uky.edu (Richard Shelby) writes:
>> >This is definitely not Descartes' view; Descartes continually insisted
>> >that the non-physical is simple and indivisible, hence cannot be broken
>> >into parts (whether corresponding to physical parts or not).  
>> Where did this point come up?  In any case, as irrelevant as it is to
>
>The point came up because you said that Descartes searched for parts
>of the mind analgous to parts of physical objects.
>

it's a pity that i do not possess photographic memory.  i agree, overall
descartes did say that mind is indivisible but i do recall a few places
in meditations that caught my attention which described his ideas of
setting up relationships between mind and body -- only brief references.
that was what i was referring to and it was not even relevant to my
discussion.  i don't know why i said anything about that at all now
that i think of it.  it was not needed in the discussion and it seems
that this has been blown out of proportion.  i think the blurriness 
in descartes insistence on the indivisibility of mind and the later
work on mind-body relationships, in general, are quite confusing for
lay readers such as myself.  

clarification: it was 1:00am in the morning when i wrote that sentence
about corresponding mind-body problems.  unlike some, i do not have
super-human power of consistency.

>> our discussion, Descartes did argue that mind is non-physical and 
>> thus served as a token of his existence -- he actually doubted
>
>Mind did not serve as a token of his existence; it *is* his existence.
>

token of his existence is almost a straight quote by descartes -- again
my memory fails me.

besides, what's the point?  what's the meaning of this staccato remark?

>> the existence of all physical objects, but was unable to doubt the
>> existence of himself as a thinking being.  However, he also realized
>
>Descartes never "actually doubted" the existence of physical objects;
>your phrasing shows a very shallow reading of the Meditations.
>

oh yes.  i know i'm shallow.  i'm also superficial.  i know i am.
do you know you are too?  yes, you too.  we all are.  someone once
wrote that knowing that you're shallow is profound.  8-)

descartes did "actually doubt" his existence.  i'll try and look up
the part where he does that.  if my memory is not complete bankrupt
and full of parity errors, i believe i've read him actually say that.
i didn't make that one up.  perhaps i was reading the words as 
written (i.e. superficially).

>> that the dualism faces considerable philosophical problems -- especially
>> that of "causal interaction".  He recognized that in many cases mind
>> and body intermingle to form a kind of unit.  As much as he wanted
>> to insist on the indivisibily of the mind, he had to devote great efforts to
>> the problem of interaction between mind and body -- somewhat incompatible
>> substances working together in mystical ways.  Is mind then truly
>> indivisible?  He seems to have been quite confused.
>
>No, you are confused.  Indivisibility does not imply non-interaction; it
>simply implies a lack of parts.
>

indivisibility  does not mean lack of parts.  it kind of implies that
it's pretty damn hard to break it apart without errors.

i did not say indivisibility implied non-interaction.  i said the concept
of indivisibility of mind and his work on interaction between mind and body
and the fact that he considered body to be divisible confuses me, or perhaps
he was confused.  that's what i said.

>> >Aristotle, on the other hand, did argue that a proper method of inquiry
>> >for non-physical `objects' is the analysis of the object into constituents,
>> >even if the constituents do not exist in reality.   . . .
>> I still don't understand this fetish with Aristotle.  The emphasis
>
>Aristotle is brought up because you keep imputing Aristotle's ideas
>to Descates.
>

correction... it was ken presting who started the talk about aristotle.
i never brought it up. once it was brought up i made littlest comments
about it (one sentence i think) to actively discourage any more side-tracking.

>> of my original posting was on the dualistic methodology of Cartesian
>> thinking systems.  I never even mentioned Aristotle.  . . .
>
>> >Technically, Descartes thought only non-human living organisms were automata,
>> >humans, he argued are something more (i.e. they have minds).
>> Notice your misunderstanding: human living organisms are not automata
>> because they have minds.  Human living organisms also have physiology
>
>I fear it is not I who misunderstand Descartes, and I'll stake several
>years of graduate study in philosophy of mind and several readings of
>the Meditations, Discourse on Method and Descartes' commentators on it.
>

hey.  i'm an amateur.  i read the stuff out of pure joy and interpret 
it as i read them.  i do not study the damn things.  i just read to
get the feel, the flow, and get my shit together, that's all.  when
given a chance, i'll exhibit my ignorance to others -- perhaps if i'm
lucky i'll get some enlightenment from people like you who seemed to
have spent more time with it.  but sometimes, scorn is all i get.
oh well.  you win some, you lose some.

>> which was considered to be automata by Descartes and that was precisely
>> what I was talking about: they biological foundation of Cartesian
>> school of thoughts.  Of course he argued that humans have something 
>
>Descartes is quite explicit that thoughts are *not* biological in origin.
>

agreed.  the biological foundation of cartesian school of thoughts means
nothing descartes did.  note that lack of his name in this phrase.  i 
explicitly avoided using his name and used cartesian school of thoughts.
i was *not* also talking about the origin of thoughts -- be it biological
or not.  i was talking about one aspect of cartesian school of thinking
that supposes that mind is also a kind of automata.

>Richard L. Shelby                    rshelby@ms.uky.edu
>Department of Health Services        rshelby@ukma.BITNET
>University of Kentucky               {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!rshelby

-- 
Hwa Jin Bae (hwajin@wrs.com)
Wind River Systems