8 ideas
| 21355 | The Pre-Socratics are not simple naturalists, because they do not always 'leave the gods out' [Leroi] |
| Full Idea: The problem with making naturalism the hallmark of Pre-Socratic thought ...is that they do not always 'leave the gods out'; the Divine can usually be found lurking somewhere is their cosmologies. | |
| From: Armand Marie LeRoi (The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science [2014], 007) | |
| A reaction: An important observation. I've been guilty of this simplistic view. We tend to ignore the religious fragments, or we possess so little that we have no idea where religion figured in their accounts. |
| 6375 | The taste of chocolate is a 'finer-grained' sensation than the taste of sweetness [Polger] |
| Full Idea: The taste of chocolate is presumably a 'finer-grained' sensation than the taste of sweetness. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.1.4) | |
| A reaction: An interesting distinction when it comes to what they are like, and whether two very different brains can realise them. Sweetness might be the same for most creatures, but the tast of chocolate subtly different. |
| 6381 | The mind and the self are one, and the mind-self is a biological phenomenon [Polger] |
| Full Idea: We should return to the old idea that the mind and the self are one and combine it with the new idea that the mind-self is a biological phenomenon. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], §8.3) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't make allowance for the fact that some parts of my mind seem like irritating visitors, and other parts seem like the home-owner. Personally I take the self to be the brain's central controller, or the centre (forum) of brain integration. |
| 5692 | Introspection is not perception, because there are no extra qualities apart from the mental events themselves [Rosenthal] |
| Full Idea: Introspection cannot be a form of perceiving, since that invariably involves sensory qualities, and no qualities occur in introspection other than those of the sensations and perceptions we introspect; there are no additional qualities. | |
| From: David M. Rosenthal (Instrospection [1998]) | |
| A reaction: This sounds pretty conclusive. Presumably introspection is best described as meta-thought rather than perception, which means that it involves beliefs and judgements, rather than new perceptual qualities. It has to be conceptual, and probably linguistic. |
| 6378 | Teleological functions explain why a trait exists; causal-role functions say what it does [Polger] |
| Full Idea: Teleological functions help explain why a trait has come to exist; causal-role functions tell what a trait does or is apt to do. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], §5.4) | |
| A reaction: The teleological view has the merit of nesting nicely with the theory of evolution, and with Aristotelian virtue ethics (which I like). Causal-role functionalism focuses better on what is actually happening inside the head. |
| 6380 | Identity theory says consciousness is an abstraction: a state, event, process or property [Polger] |
| Full Idea: Identity theories locate consciousness at a certain order of abstraction, typically among neurophysiological states, events, processes, or properties. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.7.6) | |
| A reaction: I increasingly think that processes are the answer. My new analogy for the mind is a waterfall: its physical ontology is simple, it only exists because there is a sustained process, and it is far too complex to predict individual droplet outcomes. |
| 6379 | A mummified heart has the teleological function of circulating blood [Polger] |
| Full Idea: A preserved heart in a jar of formaldehyde has the teleological function of circulating blood. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], §5.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration. |
| 6377 | Teleological notions of function say what a thing is supposed to do [Polger] |
| Full Idea: Teleological notions of function specify not just what a thing happens to do, but what it is supposed to do. | |
| From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.5.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the basis of a distinct theory of the mind. It seems to be akin to the 'dispositions' of behaviourism, so that the mind becomes once more a theoretical and abstract entity, rather than a thing of occurrent events and processes. |