11 ideas
2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
Full Idea: The besetting foible of philosophers is mistaking failures of imagination for insights into necessity. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) |
2523 | That every mammal has a mother is a secure reality, but without foundations [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Naturalistic philosophers should look with favour on the finite regress that peters out without foundations or thresholds or essences. That every mammal has a mother does not imply an infinite regress. Mammals have secure reality without foundations. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: I love this thought, which has permeated my thinking quite extensively. Logicians are terrified of regresses, but this may be because they haven't understood the vagueness of language. |
2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
Full Idea: You can't have consciousness until you have the concept of consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: If you read enough Dennett this begins to sound vaguely plausible, but next day it sounds like an absurd claim. 'You can't see a tree until you have the concept of a tree?' When do children acquire the concept of consciousness? Are apes non-conscious? |
2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
Full Idea: I continue to argue for a crucial role of natural language in generating the central features of consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: 'Central features' might beg the question. Dennett does doubt the consciousness of animals (1996). As I stare out of my window, his proposal seems deeply counterintuitive. How could language 'generate' consciousness? Would loss of language create zombies? |
2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
Full Idea: It is on the foundation of unconscious intentionality that the higher-order complexities developed that have culminated in what we call consciousness. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: Sounds right to me. Pace Searle, I have no problem with unconscious intentionality, and the general homuncular picture of low levels building up to complex high levels, which suddenly burst into the song and dance of consciousness. |
2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
Full Idea: How could you make a robot conscious? The answer, I think, is to be found in software. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a commitment to strong AI, though Dennett is keen to point out that brains are the only plausible implementation of such software. Most find his claim baffling. |
2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Postulating a language of thought is a postponement of the central problems of content ascription, not a necessary first step. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: If the idea of content is built on the idea of representation, then you need some account of what the brain does with its representations. |
2529 | Maybe there can be non-conscious concepts (e.g. in bees) [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Concepts do not require consciousness. As Jaynes says, the bee has a concept of a flower, but not a conscious concept. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: Does the flower have a concept of rain? Rain plays a big functional role in its existence. It depends, alas, on what we mean by a 'concept'. |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
9425 | Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis] |
Full Idea: Later Lewis said we must choose between the intersection of the axioms of the tied best systems. He chose for laws the axioms that are in all the tied systems (but then there may be few or no axioms in the intersection). | |
From: comment on David Lewis (Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance [1980], p.124) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |