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Full Idea
Why is it that, using the same mind, we have perception of things so utterly unlike as colour, taste, heat, smell and sound?
Gist of Idea
How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations?
Source
M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xx.47)
Book Ref
Cicero: 'Tusculan Disputations', ed/tr. King,J.E. [Harvard Loeb 1927], p.57
A Reaction
This leaves us with the 'binding problem', of how the dissimilar sensations are pulled together into one field of experience. It is a nice simple objection, though, to anyone who simplistically claims that the mind is self-evidently unified.
5879 | The soul is the heart, or blood in the heart, or part of the brain, of something living in heart or brain, or breath [Cicero] |
5884 | How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero] |
5887 | The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero] |
5885 | Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero] |
5886 | Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero] |
5890 | We should not share the distress of others, but simply try to relieve it [Cicero] |
5891 | Philosophy is the collection of rational arguments [Cicero] |
5893 | A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero] |
5894 | All men except philosophers fear poverty [Cicero] |
5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |