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Ideas for '', 'Tarski's Theory of Truth' and 'Natural Minds'

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2 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Identity theory says consciousness is an abstraction: a state, event, process or property [Polger]
     Full Idea: Identity theories locate consciousness at a certain order of abstraction, typically among neurophysiological states, events, processes, or properties.
     From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.7.6)
     A reaction: I increasingly think that processes are the answer. My new analogy for the mind is a waterfall: its physical ontology is simple, it only exists because there is a sustained process, and it is far too complex to predict individual droplet outcomes.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
'Valence' and 'gene' had to be reduced to show their compatibility with physicalism [Field,H]
     Full Idea: 'Valence' and 'gene' were perfectly clear long before anyone succeeded in reducing them, but it was their reducibility and not their clarity before reduction that showed them to be compatible with physicalism.
     From: Hartry Field (Tarski's Theory of Truth [1972], §5)