Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

n'y a d\'intelligence sans organe

English translation:

There's no intelligence without a brain

Added to glossary by B D Finch
Nov 15, 2018 06:23
5 yrs ago
French term

n\'y a d\'intelligence sans organe

French to English Science Music
Here’s the complete sentence:

car, il n'y a pas d'observation désincarnée de toute action physique, pas plus qu'il n'y a d'intelligence sans organe ni d'homme sans corps

Here’s my translation:

For there is no disembodied observation of any physical action, no more than there is intelligence without an organ or a person without a body.
Change log

Nov 29, 2018 10:34: B D Finch Created KOG entry

Proposed translations

+4
3 hrs
French term (edited): n'y a d'intelligence sans organe
Selected

There's no intelligence without a brain

I think that use of the word "brain" is essential. "Organ" just doesn't work in English, which is a shame because, if it could be used, there'd be a nice musical reference. "Mind" is self-referential, so it also doesn't work and it fails to link the conceptual with the physical entity.

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Note added at 3 hrs (2018-11-15 10:10:46 GMT)
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Omit the "There's no", as that doesn't fit in with the text.
Peer comment(s):

agree Tony M
2 hrs
Thanks Tony
neutral Daryo : you are forgetting that there is also "Artificial Intelligence" - and the ST is not specific - it's not necessarily ONLY about human intelligence. // AI can also "exist" only if there is some physical support - not a "brain" but some IT hardware.
3 hrs
That depends upon the status assigned to AI. However, the ST is about the need for a physical "organe" and I don't see how that could apply to AI. It can, however, apply to non-human animals.
agree Yvonne Gallagher : nothing to do with AI that I can see!
4 hrs
Thanks Yvonne
agree Nicole Acher
13 hrs
Thanks Nicole
agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : Descartes an' all that. So yes, no intelligence with a brain, or even "physical brain" as suggested by Sandra and Kenneth.//Nothing to do with AI, not in this part of the text.
4 days
Thanks Nikki. I think you meant "without"!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
-1
11 mins

there is no intelligence without mind

Hello

I think this is what it is. I wouldn't use "brain" personally here
Peer comment(s):

neutral Sandra & Kenneth Grossman : mind is not an organ, and is not opposed to "intelligence"
26 mins
Brain is the physical organ but "mind" fits better in my opinion.
disagree Daryo : that's not what is said in the ST - the point made is in the necessity for some material support / tangible container for the "intelligence". // same as the fact that any kind of "software" can not exist without IT "hardware" as its container / support
7 hrs
neutral Nikki Scott-Despaigne : As this is about Catersian-type duality of body and mind, then (the immaterial) "mind" becomes a synonym of intelligence. Unfortunately, this suggesstion does not distinguish the immaterial from the material so it does not work here.
5 days
Hello Nikki. I prefer "mind" but accept "brain". Not "organ" though and I'm surprised by the support for that suggestion. Regards
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+4
37 mins

without a physical organ

or even physical brain.

This is about the dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual;
Peer comment(s):

neutral SafeTex : you were kind enough not to give me a disagree so I will do the same and say that my foot is a physical organ too. I expected someone to say "brain" but not this
1 hr
agree GILLES MEUNIER
3 hrs
Thanks!
agree Daryo : or "without a physical support" // "brain" is no good - the ST doesn't say anything specific about the type of "intelligence"
7 hrs
Thanks!
agree Yvonne Gallagher : I think it might be more natural English with THE physical organ.
7 hrs
Thanks!
agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : I like "physical brain". This is basically about Cartesian-type mind-body duality, as indicated in the phrases before and after the one in question. The solution needs to point to a clear distinction between the two.
5 days
Thanks!
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Reference comments

5 days
Reference:

Descartes, mind-body dualism/-ity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_dualism

Mind–body dualism, or mind–body duality, is a view in the philosophy of mind that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical,[1] or that the mind and body are distinct and separable.[2] Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, and between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.[1][2]

Aristotle shared Plato's view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals, and people: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure, and desire that only people and other animals share; and the faculty of reason that is unique to people only. In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a viable organism, wherein each level of the hierarchy formally supervenes upon the substance of the preceding level. Thus, for Aristotle, all three souls perish when the living organism dies.[3][4] For Plato however, the soul was not dependent on the physical body; he believed in metempsychosis, the migration of the soul to a new physical body.[5]

Dualism is closely associated with the thought of René Descartes (1641), which holds that the mind is a nonphysical—and therefore, non-spatial—substance. Descartes clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain as the seat of intelligence.[6] Hence, he was the first to formulate the mind–body problem in the form in which it exists today.[7] Dualism is contrasted with various kinds of monism. Substance dualism is contrasted with all forms of materialism, but property dualism may be considered a form of emergent materialism or non-reductive physicalism in some sense.
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