[ExI] intentionality

[Darren Greer]

Thanks Damien. Too wasted to check it out tonight, But will tomorrow. Why is
it that the Christians, when they can't get at me any other time of year,
always get me with *C**2**H**5**OH? :)*
*
*
*D.
*
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>wrote:

> On 12/21/2010 5:32 PM, Darren Greer wrote:
>
>  once said to me to be careful about intentionality<
>>>
>>
>> I'm not sure if this is how your thesis advisor meant it, but the
>> brilliant (in my opinion) scientist and social activist Canadian David
>> Suzuki was once talking about scientific research grants, and how the
>> phenomenon of focussed intentionality based on predetermined objectives
>> often required for preliminary funding can blind us to the
>> serendipitous, which was once, and still should be, the heart and soul
>> of scientific discovery.
>>
>
> Not really; not in a philosophical sense. Check out
>
> <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/>
>
> <For reasons soon to be explained, in its philosophical usage, the meaning
> of the word ‘intentionality’ should not be confused with the ordinary
> meaning of the word ‘intention.’ As the Latin etymology of ‘intentionality’
> indicates, the relevant idea of directedness or tension (an English word
> which derives from the Latin verb tendere) arises from pointing towards or
> attending to some target. In medieval logic and philosophy, the Latin word
> intentio was used for what contemporary philosophers and logicians nowadays
> call a ‘concept’ or an ‘intension’: something that can be both true of
> non-mental things and properties—things and properties lying outside the
> mind—and present to the mind. On the assumption that a concept is itself
> something mental, an intentio may also be true of mental things. For
> example, the concept of a dog, which is a first-level intentio, applies to
> individual dogs or to the property of being a dog. It also falls under
> various higher-level concepts that apply to it, such as being a concept,
> being mental, etc. If so, then while the first-level concept is true of
> non-mental things, the higher-level concepts may be true of something
> mental. Notice that on this way of thinking, concepts that are true of
> mental things are presumably logically more complex than concepts that are
> true of non-mental things.>  etc etc
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
*"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20101221/bf833385/attachment.html>