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Full Idea
My meaning may be made plainer by saying that if my body could remain in exactly the same state in which it is, though my mind had ceased to exist, precisely that object which I now see when I see a flash would exist, though I should not see it.
Gist of Idea
If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.126)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'Mysticism and Logic' [Unwin 1989], p.126
A Reaction
Zombies, 70 years before Robert Kirk! Sense-data are physical. It is interesting to see a philosopher as committed to empiricism, anti-spiritualism and the priority of science as this, still presenting an essentially dualist picture of perception.
| 7545 | Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed [Russell] |
| 7546 | A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell] |
| 7547 | Matter requires a division into time-corpuscles as well as space-corpuscles [Russell] |
| 7548 | Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell] |
| 7549 | If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell] |
| 7550 | We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell] |
| 7551 | Matter is a logical construction [Russell] |
| 7552 | Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell] |
| 7553 | Sense-data are purely physical [Russell] |