I would update you on my life, but it really isn't that interesting anyway.

A friend of mine believes the following:

Two people, P1 and P2, identical in every fashion except for the space they occupy, are raised in identical situations, have literally identical sensory input. That means sights, sounds, smells objects. Raised in exactly the same way.

Given input A, would P1 and P2 respond the same way.

Though I don't think the question is origional, there is certainly conflict about the answer. My friend is hell bent: If P1 and P2 were raised in exactly the same way, the MUST both respond to input A the same way.

However, I feel this is false for two reasons. Kind-of.

First: to say that any person, given a series of inputs, will reliably give you the same output, denies the existence of a mental state that functions outside the laws of cause and effect. Essentially denying there is such a thing as the mental at all.

And second, if there is no such thing as a mental state, then you really don't have responses in any way that is interesting to talk about. That is to say, though I suppose that if we really don't have mental states and input A must yeild output M, then why talk about the novelty of identical responses for P1 or P2 at all.

I guess thats it in a nutshell.