display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
21949 | Having thoughts and feelings need engagement in the world [Heidegger, by Wrathall] |
Full Idea: Heidegger argues that having thoughts and feelings is only possible for entity that is actually engaged in the world. | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 1 | |
A reaction: This seems to be an a priori exclusion of the possibility of a brain in a vat. I guess the ancestor of this idea is Schopenhauer. |
22222 | Dasein finds itself already amongst others [Heidegger, by Caputo] |
Full Idea: The world is a world shared with others, so that far from being a solipsistic ego ...Dasein finds itself already amongst others. | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by John D. Caputo - Heidegger p.226 | |
A reaction: Phenomenologists don't seem bothered about the problem of knowing other minds. If you take something for granted, it ceases to be a problem to be solved! |
8136 | If we work and play with other people, they are bound to be 'Dasein', intelligent agents [Heidegger, by Cooper,DE] |
Full Idea: How do I know that other people have minds? The question is a bad one. Precisely because I encounter them at work, play and the like, it is guaranteed that they, too, are Dasein, intelligent agents. | |
From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.153-) by David E. Cooper - Heidegger Ch.3 | |
A reaction: I've seen film of someone playing peek-a-boo with a bonobo ape, so presumably they have Dasein. It might be easier for the AI community to aim at building a robot with Dasein, than one which was simply conscious. |
22164 | When Dasein grasps something it exists externally alongside the thing [Heidegger] |
Full Idea: When Dasein directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always 'outside' alongside entities. | |
From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.2.13) | |
A reaction: This is the first plausible fruit of phenomenology I have been able to discover. Analysing the passive mind is not very promising, but seeing what happens when we become more proactive is revealing. |
2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
Full Idea: You can't have consciousness until you have the concept of consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: If you read enough Dennett this begins to sound vaguely plausible, but next day it sounds like an absurd claim. 'You can't see a tree until you have the concept of a tree?' When do children acquire the concept of consciousness? Are apes non-conscious? |
2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
Full Idea: I continue to argue for a crucial role of natural language in generating the central features of consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: 'Central features' might beg the question. Dennett does doubt the consciousness of animals (1996). As I stare out of my window, his proposal seems deeply counterintuitive. How could language 'generate' consciousness? Would loss of language create zombies? |
2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
Full Idea: It is on the foundation of unconscious intentionality that the higher-order complexities developed that have culminated in what we call consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: Sounds right to me. Pace Searle, I have no problem with unconscious intentionality, and the general homuncular picture of low levels building up to complex high levels, which suddenly burst into the song and dance of consciousness. |