Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'What is it like to be a bat?' and 'Treatise of Human Nature'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness

3286	An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel]
	Full Idea: An organism only has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism.
	From: Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974], p.166)
	A reaction: It is hard to argue with this, but one should push on and ask what features of its consciousness make it such that there is a 'what it is like'. What is it like to have a subconscious mind, or be deeply asleep, or drive while daydreaming?

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination

21806	Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume]
	Full Idea: The memory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.7.3), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 5
	A reaction: He seems to have in mind his theory of associations, which are not rational.