You say that Dennett isn't asserting that the mind is a physical thing.

You say that Dennett is asserting minds are part of the physical universe Ok I understand the terms this far. I conclude: Part of the physical universe, or a physical aspect of the universe perhaps, is not a physical thing. I understand this far. I assert that none of the physical models included in the physical sciences include this physical non-thing, or aspect, called mind. Current physical models do not include predictions about mind. You further assert No new principles or types of energy or suppositions about extraphysical phenomena need apply. Ok since you have defined physical to include that which is not a physical thing then the new principle that is needed is not - by agreement - as you say extra-physical. However, since minds are to be included in the physical universe and since physics does not currently describe their existence in any of their current models a modification of the current physics is in fact required. Why? I assert that an arrangement of physical things is a physical thing and since minds are not physical things and since the physics predicts only a new arrangement of physical things based on an old one, then we need this new principle to establish the relation between an arrangement of physical things and the production of physical non-things that are minds or if you prefer between an arrangement of physical things and a newly defined physical aspect of those things, different from the current aspects described, that is subjective. We need this to complete the physics if minds are to be considered part of the physical universe that it is the function of physics to describe since it currently does not describe it. The following is I think a very bad (false, and misleading in fact) analogy: Mind, while it may be localized in any given brain, is a different category of thing, more akin to the turning of a wheel than to the wheel itself. This is a very bad analogy because the turning of a wheel is very amply defined in terms of the current physics. The turning of a wheel in classic physics is defined in terms of the angular velocity of an assembly of particles about an axis referenced to some coordinate system. It is an arrangement of matter. Angular velocity is the vector cross product of the moment radial vector and the velocity vector. The velocity vector is the rate of change of the position. There is

however, nothing in the physics like this about mind or awareness etc. This is the first that is not about predicting the arrangement. Nor can this be excused by the fact that the brain is more complicated than a wheel. Clearly the brain is more complicated but it is believed that it is operating under the same laws and hence no matter how complicated will never achieve awareness as a result of the physical description. In other words it is not the complexity of the motion that is the problem. It is because any motion does not imply awareness no matter how complex even if it causes the device to pass the Turing test. Nor is there in the physical description a description of water, but the chemical one has it and can be considered a working out of the physical prediction. Water acts as the current physics predicts. For all practical purposes for this discussion chemistry can be considered an extension of physics that requires no further laws (or few but explicit ones) and also the biological one and finally the neurological one. All of these descriptions are consistent with (reducible to) the outcome of current physical prediction and they do not require any (or very little) maturation of the physics. The brain, no matter how complex its motion can be described as an assembly of physical things in motion by the current physics. (Ok, I understand quantum mechanics and I understand the relativity of time but without an elaborate discussion we cant clarify why they are irrelevant or second order discussions at best) It is just that the predicted outcome of physical science, classical or modern, does not predict awareness. More precisely they predict the object model to the point that its extension into experience on the objective side (its description of a measurement device and its correlation to the experience of that measurement device in the experience of an experimental physicist, and even its extension into things like the visibility of a certain portion of the spectrum) is obvious. Moreover these correlations are documented in physics texts with illustrations. And yet we have the fact that mind (on the subjective side) occurs. Therefore a new principle(s) is (are) in fact needed. If nothing else the extension of the predictive model into experience needs to be extended to the subjective side of experience in the same way that physical models currently are extended into an experience in the lab. Toward that end using an analogy to the way that physical models of say lab equipment are correlated to what the actual lab equipment looks like to an experimenter seems a better but still perhaps ultimately false - fit. In this case we need to emphasize that the brain device does not just have an objective appearance but causes experience to occur and may in fact be an experimenter. The problem is at the root of science itself. I am never sure what Dennett is saying and I suspect that might be a didactic device on his part attempting to be provocative perhaps and obscuring the issue to do so. But it is clear that if he thinks that any physical motion, however complex, when considered as an object in motion as understood by the current physics, is awareness, then he has not understood the meaning of either the terms of the physics or the term awareness. I take

away from your response that he is not saying that. Thank you for that clarification. However, then some additional principles are needed for physics. I think it is the task of neurology to find them. So either Dennett is not saying that mind is a physical thing but he is saying that mind is just a kind of motion of a physical thing which again is plainly false once you see the meaning of the terms, or else Dennett is saying that the physical universe contains more than what is currently described in the physical model. You told me which. I believe you are saying the latter. In that case the mind can be considered non-physical meaning not in the current physical model but can be considered physical when the current physics is extended to include awareness. When I say I am aware I do not mean that the mechanism of my brain moves in a certain way although, no doubt, the fact that I am aware is caused by that motion. Recently I accompanied a friend of mine to the hospital as she was suffering temporary amnesia. I could during that evening repeat a series of questions and she literally would repeat (as the nurses say she became loopy). She became very much (uncanny) like a machine and I was very concerned for her. Each time she looped I was concerned precisely because I knew the fear she was experiencing. I was relieved when she would forget what was happening and start all over with the question: Where am I? as her anxiety was also erased by the fact that she no longer remembered and she experienced relief. If I were to have considered her to be solely what the current physics predicts I would not have cared as she would just have been an assembly of particles moving. I have wondered what it would be like to be a brain running backwards but I suspect that this missing principle that I suggest exists would not allow it because I conjecture that the famous arrow of time and the information theory on which it is ultimately based will be one day be associated with mind and with the new principle and the old principles of entropy would prevent it. I think running a mind backward would violate entropy (although in the extremely unlikely case!) I conjecture that for mind to exist the device associated with it must consume energy (but maybe not!). I think we need a new physical principle to state under what conditions an assembly of particles becomes aware. I am aware that it is not just a simple becomes aware but each of the many components of awareness needs to be associated with those physical motions that are associated with it. I believe that that program is being accomplished by neurology and cybernetics. Its findings need to be scrutinized carefully for the new physical principles. Perhaps Searle is wrong and his Chinese room is literally consciousness. One other thing: You mentioned: ..a lot of people get their backs up, perhaps because they want to see a distinction between minds and brains, a distinction that makes the mind different There is I think a larger program here. Certain religious experience is founded on a collapse of the subject object distinction but it is not an identification of

mind and brain in the sense being proposed by Dennett. In fact the motivation to get ones back up is really to not allow the sidetrack at this point. Down the road is the discussion about what external and internal are and the implications for ethics and Wittgensteins role can be had but the conversation has to stay on track at this point. If we simply claim that the mind is the brain in motion and do not modify our understanding of what the brain then is, we do indeed throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I thank you for providing me the input that Dennett does not simply claim that the mind is the motion of the brain. I had actually been confused by him on that point as I carefully read one of his papers and saw him clearly say that he was not challenging the existence of consciousness only its special character. He then however seemed to go on latter and imply at least that he was and everything I read about what he thinks says (or very strongly implies) that he thinks it is too. I think he does not emphasize or clarify this point in his more popular venues as well as you have.