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Single Idea 18538

[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 8. Human Thought ]

Full Idea

Non-conscious thought need not resemble conscious thought occurring out of sight.

Gist of Idea

Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought

Source

John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 12.10)

Book Ref

Heil,John: 'The Universe as We Find It' [OUP 2012], p.273

The 141 ideas from John Heil

7001 If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil]
7004 The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil]
7003 There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil]
7007 I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil]
7009 Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil]
7008 Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil]
7010 Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil]
7011 Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil]
7002 If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil]
7012 If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil]
7013 The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil]
7015 A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil]
7018 Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil]
7017 The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil]
7016 The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil]
7019 Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil]
7020 Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil]
7021 If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil]
7023 Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil]
7025 Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil]
7026 Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil]
7027 Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil]
7028 If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil]
7029 Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil]
7030 Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil]
7032 Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil]
7034 Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil]
7036 The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil]
7035 God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil]
7037 Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil]
7038 A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil]
7039 How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil]
7044 Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil]
7045 Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil]
7041 Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil]
7042 A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil]
7043 Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil]
7046 Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil]
7047 Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil]
7048 Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil]
7051 Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil]
7052 Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil]
7053 Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil]
7054 Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil]
7057 Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil]
7058 Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil]
7060 One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil]
7059 The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil]
7061 Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil]
7062 Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil]
7063 Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil]
7064 Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil]
7066 If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil]
7065 Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil]
4588 There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil]
4587 From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil]
4586 You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil]
4591 Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil]
4592 If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil]
4590 If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil]
4593 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil]
4596 The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil]
4597 Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil]
4595 No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil]
4594 A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil]
4598 Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil]
4601 Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil]
4602 Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil]
4599 Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil]
4603 Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil]
4607 Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil]
4609 It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil]
4604 If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil]
4605 Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil]
4606 To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil]
4625 Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil]
4619 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil]
4620 Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil]
4622 Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil]
4614 Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil]
4624 If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil]
4610 Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil]
4618 If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil]
4621 Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil]
4623 Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil]
4626 The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil]
4617 A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil]
4616 A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil]
4612 Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil]
4615 Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil]
4611 The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil]
21339 We want the ontology of relations, not just a formal way of specifying them [Heil]
21351 Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil]
21350 If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil]
21344 If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil]
21349 Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil]
21348 In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil]
21340 Maybe all the other features of the world can be reduced to relations [Heil]
18495 The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil]
18494 Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil]
18505 Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil]
18504 Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil]
18506 Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil]
18507 Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil]
18508 Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil]
18509 Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil]
18510 We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil]
18511 Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil]
18512 Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil]
18513 Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil]
18514 Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil]
18515 Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil]
18516 A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil]
18517 Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil]
18518 Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil]
18519 If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil]
18520 Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil]
18522 Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil]
18523 Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil]
18524 Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil]
18525 Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil]
18526 We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil]
18527 Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil]
18531 Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil]
18532 If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil]
18533 In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil]
18534 Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil]
18497 Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil]
18498 Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil]
18496 If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil]
18500 How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil]
18499 Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil]
18502 If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil]
18501 Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil]
18503 You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil]
18535 Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil]
18536 The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil]
18538 Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil]
18537 Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil]
18539 Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil]
18540 Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil]