16061
|
If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
|
|
Full Idea:
Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
|
|
From:
Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
|
23304
|
The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji]
|
|
Full Idea:
The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory.
|
|
From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference')
|
|
A reaction:
The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow.
|
23303
|
Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji]
|
|
Full Idea:
Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable.
|
|
From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other')
|
|
A reaction:
An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this.
|
19035
|
General Relativity allows substantivalism about space-time - that it has independent properties [Hoefer]
|
|
Full Idea:
General Relativity describes space-time in a way that allows it to exist with determinate properties not reducible to the properties and relations of its material contents. Hence nearly all physicists and philosophers writing on GR are substantivalists.
|
|
From:
Carl Hoefer (The Metaphysics of Space-Time Substantivalism [1996], p.5), quoted by Barbara Vetter - Potentiality 7.3
|
|
A reaction:
I'm encouraged by this, as I instinctly favour substantivalism. Imagine removing all the objects from space-time, one by one. What happens as you approach the end of the task? Once they are removed, can they be replaced?
|