Re: [xmca] Consciousness "only a part of the material quality of the man-sign"

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

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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