94 ideas
3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
22886 | The modern idea of 'limit' allows infinite quantities to have a finite sum [Bardon] |
3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
22914 | An equally good question would be why there was nothing instead of something [Bardon] |
3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
20298 | The traditional a priori is justified without experience; post-Quine it became unrevisable by experience [Rey] |
3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
20300 | Externalist synonymy is there being a correct link to the same external phenomena [Rey] |
3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
20294 | 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey] |
20293 | Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey] |
20297 | Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey] |
20301 | The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey] |
20302 | An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey] |
20303 | Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey] |
20299 | If we claim direct insight to what is analytic, how do we know it is not sub-consciously empirical? [Rey] |
3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
22902 | Why does an effect require a prior event if the prior event isn't a cause? [Bardon] |
22905 | Becoming disordered is much easier for a system than becoming ordered [Bardon] |
22913 | The universe expands, so space-time is enlarging [Bardon] |
22889 | We should treat time as adverbial, so we don't experience time, we experience things temporally [Bardon, by Bardon] |
22900 | How can we question the passage of time, if the question takes time to ask? [Bardon] |
22898 | What is time's passage relative to, and how fast does it pass? [Bardon] |
22897 | The A-series says a past event is becoming more past, but how can it do that? [Bardon] |
22901 | The B-series needs a revised view of causes, laws and explanations [Bardon] |
22896 | The B-series is realist about time, but idealist about its passage [Bardon] |
22903 | The B-series adds directionality when it accepts 'earlier' and 'later' [Bardon] |
22910 | To define time's arrow by causation, we need a timeless definition of causation [Bardon] |
22909 | We judge memories to be of the past because the events cause the memories [Bardon] |
22904 | The psychological arrow of time is the direction from our memories to our anticipations [Bardon] |
22906 | The direction of entropy is probabilistic, not necessary, so cannot be identical to time's arrow [Bardon] |
22907 | It is arbitrary to reverse time in a more orderly universe, but not in a sub-system of it [Bardon] |
22883 | It seems hard to understand change without understanding time first [Bardon] |
22890 | We experience static states (while walking round a house) and observe change (ship leaving dock) [Bardon] |
22884 | The motion of a thing should be a fact in the present moment [Bardon] |
22892 | Experiences of motion may be overlapping, thus stretching out the experience [Bardon] |
22911 | At least eternal time gives time travellers a possible destination [Bardon] |
22912 | Time travel is not a paradox if we include it in the eternal continuum of events [Bardon] |
22882 | We use calendars for the order of events, and clocks for their passing [Bardon] |