decisions, uncertainty and the brain

Abstract: © Mind Association 2005 Mind, Vol. 114 . 455 . July 2005 actions, and if, for example, the side-effects were not part of the intentions, then should something untoward happen and the agent need to revise his plan, the intentions could not perform the very guidance role for which they are required. To be sure, such information must be in some way encoded and retained by the agent for possible use. But it seems to me that there is no reason why this information must be retained at the personal level at all; it may be hard-wired in, and be potentially accessible to the agent in certain circumstances. But if intentions are to be placed at the personal level, there is then no argument for over-inflating the size of intentions themselves to contain such information. The song says that Casey’s mind was so loaded that it nearly exploded. Enç’s account of action seems to me to have Casey’s problem.