Two kinds of tools

I picked up this beauty on Saturday from a generous person in Austin who was selling it on Craigslist, but gave it to me for free when it became clear that I'd be actually using it rather than reselling it. (The image on screen is a one-shot capture of the electricity generated by a DC motor when you set it spinning by hand and then let it slow down. Surprisingly linear down-slope, by the way.)

Anyway, thinking about this led me to a curious distinction between two kinds of tools. A tool is used for affecting something. We can distinguish tools into:

• Tools designed to affect minds.
• Tools designed to affect the extra-mental world.

An oscilloscope, a calculator, measuring tape, a book, binoculars and an anti-depressant are all tools designed to produce mental effects, of a particularly calibrated sort, whether by leading to beliefs about the results of measurements, or certain kinds of perceptions, or the like. On the other hand, a bulldozer, a vacuum cleaner, a test-tube and a roof are all tools designed to affect the extra-mental world. Of course, the affecting of the mind in the case of the first kind of tool might in some instance only be a means to affecting the extra-mental world (you might read a book about how to fix a car), while the affecting of the extra-mental world in the case of the second kind of tool might in some instance only be a means to affecting the mental world (the test-tube is used to contain chemicals in order to find out something). Nonetheless, the direct intended effect of the tools is, at least in the primary intended application, as stated.

Eliminativism about minds

Here is a hypothesis: A mature neuro-science will, as the eliminativists claim, have no room for concepts like "belief", "desire", etc. Suppose this hypothesis proves true. What should we then do? Obviously, it would be absurd to deny that we have beliefs or desires. Instead, we should deny that belief, desire, etc. occur in the neural system, which is what the neuro-science studies, and hold that they occur elsewhere. Since there is no other plausible candidate for the mind in the physical world besides the neural system, we should conclude that belief, desire, etc. occur outside the physical world, i.e., that some form of dualism is true. Moreover, I suspect that a neuro-science that would have no room for beliefs and desires would also have no room for the idea that there are states of the brain on which beliefs and desires supervene. Thus, it would lead us to a non-supervenient dualism.

But this is just an exercise in hypotheticality, since we are in no position to make such specific predictions about future science.