display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 3998 | If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: If the famous brain in a bottle is your exact duplicate in brain states, but only experiences the computer's virtual reality, so that you share no objects of acquaintance, then according to externalists you share no beliefs whatsoever. | |
| From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.424) | |
| A reaction: A very nice reductio ad absurdum of the idea that all concepts and beliefs have external meaning. |
| 3997 | Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing to support the thesis that wide content is the only kind of content, or that it is any way pre-eminent or basic. | |
| From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.424) | |
| A reaction: The idea that all content is 'wide' seems quite wrong. We can't all be wrong about the meaning of a word, because the underlying facts have not yet been discovered. |
| 3999 | A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: According to externalists, Davidson's 'swampman' is your exact duplicate in brains states, but hasn't had time to become acquainted with much, so he has virtually no beliefs. | |
| From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.425) | |
| A reaction: An implausible fantasy, but it does highlight the fact that beliefs and concepts are primarily internal states. |
| 4000 | Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Wide content is derivative, a product of narrow content and relationships of acquaintance with external things. | |
| From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.430) | |
| A reaction: I would say: content is a mental state, but it is created and fixed by a community, and wide content is the part fixed by experts in the community. We can all be wrong about meanings, and occasionally most of us are wrong about a specialised meaning. |