Andy,
You're misrepresenting what I wrote, and why I wrote it. I am indeed
arguing that all representational systems are material. Yet I find
myself dealing constantly with colleagues who believe that psychology
must study non-material representational systems. That to understand
children's development, for example, requires studying their 'internal,'
'mental' representations. I was citing Donald's work as an example that
does a good job of explaining human cognitive development (historical
rather than ontogenetic, but that's not an important difference in this
context) with reference only to representational systems that are
material. Plus brain functioning, construed in non-representational
ways. No tautology here, and no problem.
Martin
On Sep 26, 2009, at 7:54 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Martin referred to a series of "representational systems" being all
"material"; I pointed out that Martin had already said that
*everything*, even consciousness, was material so the statement that
these representational systems were material was a "motherhood
statement", i.e., a tautology.
So I responded "show me a representational system which is *not*
material" which is a problem for Martin because he says that
everything is material.
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