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2 ideas
4937 | Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
Full Idea: Early and central in the development of the brain are the dimensions provided by value systems indicating salience for the entire organism. | |
From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13) | |
A reaction: This doesn't quite meet Hume's challenge to find values in the whole of nature, but it matches Charles Taylor's claim that for humans values are knowable a priori. Conditional values can be facts of the whole of nature. "If there is life, x has value..". |
202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
Full Idea: No one willingly goes to meet evil, or what he thinks is evil. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 358d) | |
A reaction: Presumably people who actively choose satanism can override this deep-seated attitude. But their adherence to evil usually seems to be rather restrained. A danger of tautology with ideas like this. |