January 2011
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Memory is a perceptually active mental system. It receives, encodes, modifies, retains and retrieves information. In any information system we find a kind of dualism. On the one hand, we have a physical object such as a book or thermostat. On the other hand, we have the information it holds or the information processes that guide its operation. The information flows of a thermostat can be understood without regard to how the thermostat works. This suggests, then, that mind can be understood as information storage (memory) and processes (memory encoding and retrieval, and thinking). Doing so respects the insight of dualism, that mind is somehow independent of body, without introducing all the problems of a substantial soul. Soul is information.