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2 ideas
2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
Full Idea: With Associationism there proved to be no way to get a rational mental life to emerge from the sorts of causal relations among thoughts that the 'laws of association' recognised. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 18) | |
A reaction: This might not be true if you add the concept of evolution, which has refined the associations to generate truth (which is vital for survival). |
3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Central state identity theorists had trouble providing for the nomological possibility of rational machines (and hence no space for a non-biological, e.g. computational, theory of intelligence). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
A reaction: I surmise that a more externalist account of the physical mind might do the trick, by explaining intelligence in terms of an evolved relationship between brain and environment. |