11 ideas
23514 | The cerbellum has a huge number of neurons, but little involvement in consciousness [Seth] |
Full Idea: The cerebellum [at the back] has about four times as many neurons as the rest of the brain put together, but seems barely involved in consciousness. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.2) | |
A reaction: I wonder if it also has four times as many connections? |
23513 | Single neurons can carry out complex functions [Seth] |
Full Idea: It is increasingly apparent that even single neurons are capable of carrying out highly complex functions all by themselves. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.1 n) | |
A reaction: Bang goes the simple connectionist account of consciousness. |
23516 | Maybe a system is conscious if the whole generates more information than its parts [Seth] |
Full Idea: The main claim of Tononi's 'integrated information theory' is that a system is conscious to the extent that its whole generates more information than its parts. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.3) | |
A reaction: Seth seems to present this as an 'interesting' proposal. I find it unlikely that consciousness could be explain in terms of information, or that a machine constructed on this principle would thus become conscious. (Databases pass this test). |
23519 | The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG] |
Full Idea: The elements of a self are 1) embodied - related directly to the body, 2) perspectival - having a viewpoint, 3) volitional - being an agent, 4) narrative - aware of past and future, and 5) social - as others perceive me. | |
From: report of Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.8) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: [summarised] Seth says there are distinctive emotions associated with each of these aspects of the self. This list is very helpful, as a discouragement for anyone who wants to pick one of these as the sole true nature of the self. |
23518 | Modern AI is mostly machine-based pattern recognition [Seth] |
Full Idea: Much of today's AI is best described as sophisticated machine-based pattern recognition. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], IV.13) | |
A reaction: Personally I wouldn't want to underestimate the extent to which human intelligence is also pattern recognition (across time as well as in space). |
23517 | Volition is felt as doing what you want, with possible alternatives, and a source from within [Seth] |
Full Idea: The experience of volition is defined by 1) the feeling that I am doing what I want to do, 2) that I could have done otherwise, and 3) that voluntary actions seem to come from within. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.11) | |
A reaction: Note that these can all be cited without reference to their feeling 'free'. |
23515 | Human exceptionalism plagues biology, and most other human thinking [Seth] |
Full Idea: Human exceptionalism has repeatedly plagued biology, and has darkened the history of human thought everywhere. | |
From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.2) | |
A reaction: I increasingly agree with this, as much in philosophy as in biology. We really need to get used to our place in evolution. |
1470 | Belief in an afterlife may be unverifiable in this life, but it will be verifiable after death [Hick, by PG] |
Full Idea: Religion is capable of 'eschatological verification', by reaching evidence at the end of life, even though falsification of its claims is never found in this life; a prediction of coming to a Celestial City must await the end of the journey. | |
From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], III) by PG - Db (ideas) |
1471 | It may be hard to verify that we have become immortal, but we could still then verify religious claims [Hick, by PG] |
Full Idea: Verification of religious claims after death is only possible if the concept of surviving death is intelligible, and we can understand the concept of immortality, despite difficulties in being certain that we had reached it. | |
From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], IV) by PG - Db (ideas) |
1469 | Some things (e.g. a section of the expansion of PI) can be verified but not falsified [Hick, by PG] |
Full Idea: Falsification and verification are not logically equivalent. For example, you might verify the claim that there will be three consecutive sevens in the infinite expansion of PI, but you could never falsify such a claim. | |
From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], §II) by PG - Db (ideas) |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |