display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 4887 | We try to cause other things to occur by causing mental events to occur [Perry] |
| Full Idea: We try to cause other things to occur by causing mental events to occur. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §2.4) | |
| A reaction: A small and obvious, but important, point. Mental causation isn't just thoughts leading to physical happenings. Here Perry means that events can be designed to cause thoughts, such as a threatening letter. Not much room for epiphenomenalism here. |
| 1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69 | |
| A reaction: As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals. |
| 4884 | Brain states must be in my head, and yet the pain seems to be in my hand [Perry] |
| Full Idea: The brain state will involve certain parts of the brain, whereas my feeling of pain seems to be located in my hand insofar as it has a bodily location. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems important to me. The brain is a ventriloquist. Perry implies that pain is quasi-disembodied, but it isn't, it is just experienced as IN the hand. Perhaps it is in the hand? Cutting the nerves loses contact with the pain. |
| 4888 | It seems plausible that many animals have experiences without knowing about them [Perry] |
| Full Idea: It seems quite plausible to me that many animals have experiences without knowing about them. | |
| From: John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §3.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree, which makes us acknowledge levels of consciousness, which probably applies to human experience as well. The simplest idea is to distinguish between experiences which involve concepts, and those which don't. Animals sometimes appear surprised. |