A better example is given in a discussion of Searle's Chinese Room thought
experiment....
Basically, he dismisses philosophical debates over the relationship between
"mechanistic" versus "intentional cognitive" processes -- for Deacon, the
issue is whether the processes of signfication are indexical or symbolic.
For Deacon, minds are all about representational processes, which emerge
from the actions of mechanisms, but which also exert downward pressure on
them.
Judy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Whitson [mailto:twhitson@udel.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 7:27 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: One last word on Peirce - signs minds & other implicated
> systems -- LONNNG
>
>
> Thanks, Judy, This looks like a book I need to read!
> Before I get to it though, I wonder if you could say just a little more
> about what he means by "mind," in relation to "brain," as when in his
> conclusion Deacon
>
> " discusses the implications of the "mind virus"
> that we host (language is the virus that has bred itself in the
> human brain,
> ... - our minds are overdesigned to
> ensure that symbols get discovered). "We inevitably imagine ourselves as
> symbols, as the tokens of a deeper discourse of the world. But symbols are
> subject to being rendered meaningless by contradiction, and this makes
> alternative models of the world direct threats to existence." P. 437 "
>
>
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