23 ideas
9978 | Analytic philosophy focuses too much on forms of expression, instead of what is actually said [Tait] |
8964 | Entities can be multiplied either by excessive categories, or excessive entities within a category [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
9986 | The null set was doubted, because numbering seemed to require 'units' [Tait] |
9984 | We can have a series with identical members [Tait] |
13416 | Mathematics must be based on axioms, which are true because they are axioms, not vice versa [Tait, by Parsons,C] |
7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
8962 | 'There are shapes which are never exemplified' is the toughest example for nominalists [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
8961 | Nominalists are motivated by Ockham's Razor and a distrust of unobservables [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
8963 | Four theories of possible worlds: conceptualist, combinatorial, abstract, or concrete [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
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] |
9981 | Abstraction is 'logical' if the sense and truth of the abstraction depend on the concrete [Tait] |
9982 | Cantor and Dedekind use abstraction to fix grammar and objects, not to carry out proofs [Tait] |
9985 | Abstraction may concern the individuation of the set itself, not its elements [Tait] |
9972 | Why should abstraction from two equipollent sets lead to the same set of 'pure units'? [Tait] |
9980 | If abstraction produces power sets, their identity should imply identity of the originals [Tait] |
7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
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] |