Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Jim Baggott, Michel de Montaigne and Anil Seth

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28 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
Why can't a wise man doubt everything? [Montaigne]
1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated
No wisdom could make us comfortably walk a wide beam if it was high in the air [Montaigne]
1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought
Montaigne was the founding father of liberalism [Montaigne, by Gopnik]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
Virtue is the distinctive mark of truth, and its greatest product [Montaigne]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Sceptics say there is truth, but no means of making or testing lasting judgements [Montaigne]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / d. Location of mind
The soul is in the brain, as shown by head injuries [Montaigne]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
The cerbellum has a huge number of neurons, but little involvement in consciousness [Seth]
Single neurons can carry out complex functions [Seth]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Maybe a system is conscious if the whole generates more information than its parts [Seth]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
Modern AI is mostly machine-based pattern recognition [Seth]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
Volition is felt as doing what you want, with possible alternatives, and a source from within [Seth]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
Rules and duties are based on the will, as that is all we control [Montaigne]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / d. Biological ethics
Human exceptionalism plagues biology, and most other human thinking [Seth]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
Apart from the fear, dying is an easy duty [Montaigne]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
We must fight fiercely to hang on to the few pleasures which survive into old age [Montaigne]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / c. Motivation for virtue
Virtue inspires Stoics, but I want a good temperament [Montaigne]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
There is not much point in only becoming good near the end of your life [Montaigne]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 3. Free speech
Nothing we say can be worse than unsaying it in the face of authority [Montaigne]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / c. Combatants
People at home care far more than soldiers risking death about the outcome of wars [Montaigne]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / a. Energy
Planck introduced the idea that energy can be quantized [Baggott]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
Fields can be 'scalar', or 'vector', or 'tensor', or 'spinor' [Baggott]
A 'field' is a property with a magnitude, distributed across all of space and time [Baggott]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / c. Electrons
Free electrons have clouds of virtual particles, arising from field interaction [Baggott]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
Thermodynamics sees nature as a continuous flow of energy, as radiation and as substance [Baggott]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / b. Standard model
The current standard model requires 61 particles [Baggott]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / c. Particle properties
Particle measurements don't seem to reflect their reality [Baggott]