display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure. |
| 7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes. |
| 2308 | Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The two principle arguments which overthrew the mind-brain identity theory were the multiple realization argument of Hilary Putnam, and the anomalist argument of Davidson, which contained the seeds of functionalism and anomalous monism. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §1 p.002) | |
| A reaction: The first argument strikes me as significant and interesting, but Davidson seems weak. It makes the unsubstantiated claim that mind is outside the laws of physics, and irreducible. |
| 2322 | Multiple realisation applies to other species, and even one individual over time [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Multiple realization goes deeper and wider than biological species, and even in the same individual the neural realizer, or correlate, of a given mental state or function may change over time through maturation and brain injuries. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.095) | |
| A reaction: The tricky question here is what you mean by 'change'. How different must a pattern of neurons be before you say it is of a different type? How do you individuate a type? |
| 2327 | Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful [Kim] |
| Full Idea: My doubts about functionalist accounts of qualia are based on the much discussed arguments from qualia inversions, and from epistemic considerations. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.102) | |
| A reaction: With a colour inversion experience changes but function doesn't. But maybe function does change if you ask the right questions. 'Is this a warm colour?' It certainly strikes me that qualia contain useful (epistemic) information. |