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Re: More than one issue, here.

198.164.200.230

I am sorry, but mind and imagination are not equivalent terms, especially in this context. If you think they are, that is hardly my problem, but I'll try.

The celebrated story of Buridan's donkey can be employed in to illustrate the point. Jean Buridan (circa 1295-1356) held a kind of determinism in which a person must choose what appears best. But, his opponents argued, suppose a donkey is placed equidistant between two equal bales of hay. Per hypothesis, both should appear equivalent, and so the donkey will not be able to make a choice and will starve to death. Of course, even those ignorant medievals would know that a hungry donkey would just go over to one of the piles of hay and start munching. You can refer to the article "Burdidan, Jean," by Nicholas Rescher in Paul Edwards, "The Encyclopedia of Philosophy," New York, MacMillan, 1967.

Why does the donkey choose one over the other? Well, maybe it has a predisposition to choose something on the right rather than on the left. Perhaps it notices something in one pile of hay that it doesn't remember in the other, that makes it look more attractive. Well, I hardly need to speculate any further to be able to say that the donkey need not be imagining something about the bales of hay to decide one is preferable, even though there is nothing objectively different about them.

Q.E.D. Rod M.

____________________________________________________________
"A dry soul is wisest and best."
--Heraclitus, trans. Wheelwright


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