type writers and tooth aches II



It was debated whether tooth aches are as physical as type writers.
According to Skinner they are. To my own surprise I found myself in
sudden and utter agreement with Skinner. What he once said, is indeed
entirely correct.

What Skinner probably didn't realise when he said it though, is that his
type writer is as much an experiential phenomenon as is his tooth ache.
What matters, is that all experiential phenomena are of the same
"stuff" - the brain activity in his own skull. If you call that
experiential brain stuff/activity physical, than necessarily type
writers and tooth aches are physical too. And so are the sound of music,
the emotions it can evoke, and the taste of straw berries.

But if we call the brain activity which is the flow of our experiences
(and their "content") physical... how do we call the correlating
experience-independent objects that serve as the input for our brains in
which those experiences (type writers, tooth aches etc) are generated? I
would say: also physical. It makes no sense to believe that some magic
occurs in ours skulls that transcends ordinary physical stuff into some
magic "mental" stuff or voodoo process.

However.. if experiential phenomena ARE properties of human brain
activity, then necessarily those properties should not be "alien" to any
other physical stuff in and around our bodies, the environment either.
The idea that physical stuff is "mindless" is mindless.


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