Ideas of Steven Pinker, by Theme

[American, fl. 1998, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.]

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7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction

7508	Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism

7510	Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device

12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory

7513	Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths?

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will

7509	Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism

7511	Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions

7512	There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [PG]

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

7505	Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life

7516	In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

7515	All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent

7514	Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default