Materialism Ends Up Denying The Existence Of

"akrasia" [weakness Of Will] In Rational Beings Is As Common As Wine In France.

Because We Do Not Understand The Brain Very Well We Are Constantly Tempted To Use The Latest Technology As A Model For Trying To Understand It. In My Childhood We Were Always Assured That The Brain Was A Telephone Switchboard...sherrington, The Great British Neuroscientist, Thought The Brain Worked Like A Telegraph System. Freud Often Compared The Brain To Hydraulic And Electromagnetic Systems. Leibniz Compared It To A Mill...at Present, Obviously, The Metaphor Is The Digital Computer.

My Car And My Adding Machine Understand Nothing: They Are Not In That Line Of Business

I Want To Block Some Common Misunderstandings About "understanding": In Many Of These Discussions One Finds A Lot Of Fancy Footwork About The Word "understanding."

It Seems To Me Obvious That Infants And Many Animals That Do Not In Any Ordinary Sense Have A Language Or Perform Speech Acts Nonetheless Have Intentional States. Only Someone In The Grip Of A Philosophical Theory Would Deny That Small Babies Can Literally Be Said To Want Milk And That Dogs Want To Be Let Out Or Believe That Their Master Is At The Door.