Stevan Harnad and I are reasonably close in our understanding of the relation of classes and concepts, providing that he understands that to be a potential apple is to potentially exist in such a way as to be able to evoke the concept {apple}. I have no problem with similar neural net activation in response to similar stimuli being implicated in classification. I say implicated for the setting sun may activate the complex representing oranges, giving rise to an association, but I can subsequently decide that even though the first thing that came to mind (was activated) was oranges, the setting sun is not an orange. Thus, neural net activation is supportive, but that does not allow us to conclude that it is decisive without some further a priori assumptions.

Where we are far, far apart is in our view of the centrality of awareness to knowing, concepts and the nature of the mind. One cannot claim to be studying mind or cognition while ignoring (or placing on indefinite hold) its one distinguishing characteristic, i.e. knowing. Stevan is confused in calling awareness "a feeling," and his idea of "act" cannot be endorsed. We also differ in that our openness to data in opposition to a priori commitments.

Let's start from the Stevan's fundamental assumptions and work our way up. While I fully endorse the science of evolution, ther is no reason to think evolution does more than explain stimulus-response patterns of behavior. As Alvin Plantinga (1994), "Naturalism Defeated" (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf) has shown, false cognitions can lead to appropriate patterns of behavior, the basis of natural selection. For example, I can think the lion coming at me wants to be my friend, and the way to make friends with it, is to run as fast as possible. The result is selected behavior, but not veridical cognition. Since there is no evolutionary pressure to form veridical judgments, Stevan's claim that "... thinking evolved in the service of doing" has no logical or empirical support that I am aware of, and he has offered none. Rationally, what we can say evolved in the service of doing was data processing, which is entirely adequate to increase fitness and natural selection, without any need for the veridical reference characteristic of sound thought. (And, if we are incapable of sound thought, we might as well give up the philosophic enterprise.)

Stevan is surely entitled to decide what he wants to study, and he and his collegues may even decide "that cognitive science's first task is to explain doing and doing-capacity." Still, they are not rationally entitled to assume that "thinking [is] presumably the internal dynamics and computation that generate the doing and the doing-capacity," without further warrant, especially as much thinking does not, and is not intended to, terminate in doing. So, we have two points against his (very common) stance: (1) there is no reasonable argument that evolution can give rise to more than data processing in support of doing, and (2) much thinking is not in support of doing at all -- certainly not the kind of doing that would further survival. Many examples of "impractical" thought come to mind: metaphysical reflection, abstract mathematics, and mystical contemplation. The last even leads to ineffability outcomes with no possible verbal doing. All take time away from more practical pursuits that might lead to increased survival of offspring, and contemplation is correlated with chastity, which can hardly give it a selective advantage.

We all know what those who think "that cognitive science's first task is to explain doing and doing-capacity," are themselves doing: they are looking for their keys under the street light, not because there is any chance the keys are actually there, but because the light is better. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of the light to find intersting things, but it is deceptive to call this looking for keys, or in this case, the nature of thought.

Before going further it is good to remind ourselves that the subject of this thread is concepts, and not the productive use of the tools of cognitive science. Those are very different topics, and we cannot allow the limitations of arbitrarily chosen tools to restrict our conclusions when other tools are more adequate to the topic are at hand. Concepts are being aware of contents, even if being aware cannot be found under the Stevan's street light.

I said that since the distinguishing activity of mind is knowing, which is essentially an subject-object relationship, we need to study both the objective and subjective side of knowing. In response, Stevan conflated knowing in general with knowing how, and went off on a tangent about feeling, which I did not mention. He never returned to subjectivity, or even bothered to address my central claim that knowing is a subject-object relationship. If how to study thought is as obvious as Stevan believes, it should be easy for him to say why my approach is ill-considered and misguided. So let me ask Stevan flat out, can there be knowing without a knowing subject and some known content or object? And, if there cannot be, how can we study knowing as opposed to biological data processing while ignoring subjectivity, i.e. being aware?

My approach does not exclude cognitive science, so it does not threaten his work. Rather, I am pointing out that cognitive science alone is inadequate to the essential act of mind: knowing.

Stevan calls awareness "a feeling." Surely that is both dismissive and ill-considered. In being aware of feelings, our feelings are the content of awareness, not awareness itself, which is standing as a subject in relation to our feelings as object. Being aware means standing as a subject, not particular contents, be they external objects or internal feelings. Having a knot in my stomach is a feeling, but being aware of a knot in my stomach is knowing I have that feeling, and not the feeling per se. I have no feeling, no awareness of body state, in being aware of Pythagoras' theorem. There is the theorem and me standing as a subject in relation to it. The associated body state may be some selective firing in my neural net, but I have no "feeling" assocated with that, and remain unaware of the firing. So, by what stretch of the definition of "feeling" is standing as a subject a feeling??

Stevan says:

I think it is begging the question to say that awareness is an "act." Acts (things done by the organism or robot) are acts (and that includes any dynamical component of their physiology or biochemistry). But awareness (feeling) is very prominently not an act. It may be closely correlated with an act or its underlying dynamical state, it happens in real time, but to dub it an "act" misses precisely what makes feeling different, special and problematic (and why that all needs to be bracketed till the "doing" part is fully explained functionally).

I am not sure what dictionary defines acts as acts. He offers no real definition, only examples and a claim that awareness is not an act without saying why, only that he finds it problematic. I can offer him sympathy, but not assent. My dictionary says that an act is doing a thing. Surely effecting a change is doing a thing, and making what was merely intelligible actually known by becoming aware of it is an important change. Saying awareness is an act is neither question begging nor problematic.

Stevan's claim that it "needs to be bracketed till the 'doing' part is fully explained functionally" is based on an a priori commitment to his peculiar epistemology, not on common usage or science. Have we bracketed the act of falling because we do not know the mechanics of gravity? (Newtons' and Einstein's theories offer only descriptions, not functional explanations.) If we were to follow his suggestion, we would never look at data until it was explained -- which would mean that it would never be explained. This is a prescription for blindness not progress.

He says:

To know what an apple is and what "apple" means is to be able to recognize, manipulate, and describe apples (and descriptions of apples). Those are doings and doing capacities.

Perhaps this might work for concrete objects like apples, but it will not suffice for abstract mathematical constructions which cannot be manipulated. Some can hardly be described. Further, it is false unless you take a behaviorist stance in which recognition is an appropriate behavioral response to an apple. It only works if recognizing entails being aware. A machine can respond to a presented apple by outputting "apple," but that would not fool most people into thinking it knew what an apple is. More fundamentally, however you choose to define "to know," it will not be what people do without including awareness. So the question is are we studying what happens nature, or embarking on some abstract construction which ignores the data of human nature?

Laws are not feelings, but then neither is being a subject a feeling. Subjects may have feelings, but they are not feelings. It is a category error to suggest that they are. The laws studied by physics control the motions of physical systems. Subjects control the motions of physical systems. It we define laws by their ability to control motions, a subject is a special kind of law. The idea that laws are universal to the extent of excluding perturbations by intending subjects has no empirical basis, but is the result of hubris. Wanting to know universal laws, and finding that the laws we know have a wide range of application, does not mean that we know universal laws. The idea that subjects can perturb physical systems systems intentionally, while it causes Stevan heart burn, has strong, repeatable experimental support.

This brings me to openness to data as opposed to a priori commitments. I prefer respecting data to a priori commitments. I cited a little of the data supporting my position: first, the placebo effect, second brain scans (surely Stevan believes in them), and lastly direct data on telekinesis (Krippner, et al. (1993), “Demonstration Research and Meta-Analysis in Para­psychol­ogy") which shows an effect of 32 events per 100,000 with z=4.1. In return I got only a faith statement that would make any Creationist proud. Without considering the data, Stevan rejects it because "most people" do. That is not the scientific method I learned. I hope that he is not suggesting I become a creationist because most people are. I learned that when results we don't like are independently replicated many times, we lay down our old commitments and theories and accept reality. What am I missing? Oh, we need to be selective in applying our methods so as not to contradict our a priori commitments? Sorry! How many angels are dancing on that pin again?

In sum, Stevan has a number of positions unsupported by data or logic.

• The idea that evolution can yield correct thinking as opposed to data processing outputting fit behavior -- vs.Plantinga's examples of non-veridical thinking yielding selected behavior.
• The idea that all thinking terminates in action or is intended to terminate in action -- falsified by theoretical reflection and contemplation.
• The idea that awareness is a feeling --  vs. feelings being on the object (content) side of the subject-object relation, while awareness is the subject side.
• The idea that we should ignore data until we can make it fit our a priori model -- e.g. all acts of awareness, any
   data showing that intentionality can result in physical changes, and any other data falsifying Stevan's model.

He also seems unwilling to admit that there can be no knowing without a knowing subject.

Dennis Polis