12727
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It's impossible, but imagine a body carrying on normally, but with no mind [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
If it could be supposed that a body exists without a mind, then a man would do everything in the same way as if he did not have a mind, and men would speak and write the same things, without knowing what they do. ...But this supposition is impossible.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Paper of December 1676 [1676], A6.3.400), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5
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A reaction:
This is clearly the zombie dream, three centuries before Robert Kirk's modern invention of the idea. Leibniz's reason for denying the possibility of zombies won't be the modern physicalist reason.
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3159
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Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett]
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Full Idea:
Intentional systems don't really have beliefs and desires, but one can explain and predict their behaviour by ascribing beliefs and desires to them. This strategy is pragmatic, not right or wrong.
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From:
Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.7?)
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A reaction:
If the ascription of beliefs and desires explains behaviour, then that is good grounds for thinking they might be real features of the brain, and even if that is not so, they are real enough as abstractions from brain events, like the 'economic climate'.
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