> I am glad to have been asked to participate and feel a slight trepidation
>in putting my foot into the water here. There is a need for clarification
>the area of defining terms but this is probably always going to be hard in a
>list topic where things can be easily misinterpreted.

My apologies to the list here, Simon and I have known each other for some time and we have previously enjoyed robust exchanges. Where my saying to him whe was wrong would fit into other exhanges, the list may not have been aware of this and it might also have been percieved as academically rude. I'd hate to think I made Paul or anyone else feel trepidation. Having said that I do believe robust and honest debate is very important ; ) .... 

>The research has led me to an interest in Jesper Hoffmeyers writing on
>biosemiotics where he makes the point that OEthe swarm in which intelligence
>manifests itself is exactly that entity we call the body¹ (Hoffmeyer 1994).
>If we are to think of the body as a swarm of atoms, there where does the
>mind body divide begin and end?
>http://www.jhoffmeyer.dk/ <http://www.jhoffmeyer.dk/> 

I think a number of us would believe that the notion of the swarm you describe is an emergent system. The mind is therefore not a pre-given. 

Whereas many have identified thought as a substance and seperate from extension (leading to the mind/body divide) thought now appears to be an emergent phenomena, it is therefore an error to think of it as seperate, that there is divide that requires bridging, thought is an expression of the system... there is no divide. 

It is a tendency of thought to carve the world up into objects. This is why the majority of western philosophy has struggled so much (the notable exceptions being Spinoza, Bergson [if you do not misread the notion of Elan Vital] and Deleuze).... it is dealing with a false problem. I think its interesting to note that other traditions focus on methods to detach the mind...

 

all the best

 

Mark



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