24 ideas
| 7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
| 7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
| 7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
| 7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
| 7511 | Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker] |
| 7512 | There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG] |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| 4761 | The 'error theory' of morals says there is no moral knowledge, because there are no moral facts [Mackie, by Engel] |
| 7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
| 8337 | Some says mental causation is distinct because we can recognise single occurrences [Mackie] |
| 8342 | Mackie tries to analyse singular causal statements, but his entities are too vague for events [Kim on Mackie] |
| 8343 | Necessity and sufficiency are best suited to properties and generic events, not individual events [Kim on Mackie] |
| 8385 | A cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect [Mackie, by Crane] |
| 8335 | Necessary conditions are like counterfactuals, and sufficient conditions are like factual conditionals [Mackie] |
| 8336 | The INUS account interprets single events, and sequences, causally, without laws being known [Mackie] |
| 8333 | A cause is an Insufficient but Necessary part of an Unnecessary but Sufficient condition [Mackie] |
| 8395 | Mackie has a nomological account of general causes, and a subjunctive conditional account of single ones [Mackie, by Tooley] |
| 8334 | The virus causes yellow fever, and is 'the' cause; sweets cause tooth decay, but they are not 'the' cause [Mackie] |
| 7516 | In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker] |
| 7515 | All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker] |
| 7514 | Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker] |
| 1473 | Is evil an illusion, or a necessary contrast, or uncontrollable, or necessary for human free will? [Mackie, by PG] |
| 1472 | The propositions that God is good and omnipotent, and that evil exists, are logically contradictory [Mackie, by PG] |