45 ideas
| 9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Science deals with the phenomena, ..but it is metaphysics, and only metaphysics, that tells us what ultimately exists. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.2) |
| 9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: There are many forms of reasoning - extrapolation, interpolation, and other arguments from analogy - that are useful but deductively invalid. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Molnar for this] |
| 9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.6) |
| 4913 | Brain lesions can erase whole categories of perception, suggesting they are hard-wired [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The discovery that a single brain lesion can erase all knowledge of man-made artefacts, or all knowledge of animals, suggests that these categories somehow hard-wired into the brain - that we all have a set of 'memory pigeonholes'. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.190) | |
| A reaction: Presumably something can become 'hard-wired' through experience, rather than from birth. The whole idea of 'hard-wired' seems misleading about the brain. What matters is that the brain physically constructs categories. |
| 9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The view of properties I find most attractive is one in which they are natural clusters of, and exhausted by, powers (plus other connections to other properties). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) |
| 9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A 'porridge' nominalist denies natural kinds, and thinks there are no objective divisions in reality, so concepts or words can be used by a community to divide the world up in any way that suits their purposes. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.3) |
| 9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If a cluster of ten powers exhausts property F, and property G differs in respect of just one power, this might explain why properties can resemble other properties and in different degrees. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: I love this. The most intractable problem about properties and universals is that of abstract reference - pink resembles red more than pink resembles green. If colours are clusters of powers, red and pink share nine out of ten of them. |
| 12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists fail to show how we ascend from being a property universally possessed, by all kind members, to the status of being an essential property. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely where my proposal comes in - the essential properties, as opposed to the accidentaly universals, are those which explain the nature and behaviour of each kind of thing (and each individual thing). |
| 4910 | Sense organs don't discriminate; they reduce various inputs to the same electrical pulses [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Despite their variety, each sense organ translates its stimulus into electrical pulses; rather than discriminating one type of input from another, the sense organs actually make them more alike. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.174) | |
| A reaction: An illuminating observation, which modern 'naïve realists' should bear in mind. Secondary qualities are entirely unrelated to the nature of the input, and are merely 'what the brain decides to make of it'. Discrimination is in our neurons. |
| 4911 | The recognition sequence is: classify, name, locate, associate, feel [Carter,R, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The sequence of events in the brain for perceptual recognition is first identifying a rough class for the object, then a name, then a location, then some associations, and finally an emotion. | |
| From: report of Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.181) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be one of those places where neuro-science trumps philosophy. You can't argue with empirical research, so philosophical theories had better adapt themselves to this sequence. The big modern discovery is the place of emotion in recognition. |
| 4919 | There seems to be no dividing line between a memory and a thought [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: It has become clear from research that there is no clear dividing line between a memory and a thought. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.308) | |
| A reaction: This always struck me as an obvious criticism of Descartes, when he claimed that memory was not an essential part of the 'thinking thing'. How can you think or understand without memory of the different phases of your thoughts? No memory, no mind! |
| 4908 | No one knows if animals are conscious [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: No one knows if animals are conscious. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.155) | |
| A reaction: This is a report from the front line of brain research, and should be born in mind when over-confident people make pronouncements about this topic. It strikes me as important to grasp that animals MIGHT not be conscious. |
| 4902 | Pain doesn't have one brain location, but is linked to attention and emotion [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Scans show there is no such thing as a pain centre; pain springs mainly from the activation of areas associated with attention and emotion. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 12) | |
| A reaction: Most brain research points to the complex multi-layered nature of experiences that were traditionally considered simple. We can be distracted from a pain, and an enormous number of factors can affect our degree of dislike of a given pain. |
| 4904 | Proper brains appear at seven weeks, and neonates have as many neurons as adults do [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The main sections of the brain, including the cerebral cortex, are visible within seven weeks of conception, and by the time the child is born the brain contains as many neurons - about 100 billion - as it will have as an adult. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: Of interest in the abortion debate, and also in thinking about personal identity. However, it seems clear that the number of connections, rather than neurons, is what really matters. A small infant may well lack personal identity. |
| 4915 | In primates, brain size correlates closely with size of social group [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Brain size in primates is closely associated with the size of the social group in which the animal lives. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.257) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Humans can have huge social groups because of language, which suggests a chicken-or-egg question. Language, intelligence and size of social group must have expanded together in humans. |
| 4917 | Consciousness involves awareness, perception, self-awareness, attention and reflection [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Awareness, perception, self-awareness, attention and reflection are all separate components of consciousness, and the quality of our experience varies according to which and how many of them are present. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.300) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers like to emphasise 'qualia' and 'intentionality'. This remark slices the cake differently. 'Attention' is interesting, dividing consciousness into two areas, with some experience fading away into the darkness. Hume denied self-awareness. |
| 4916 | There is enormous evidence that consciousness arises in the frontal lobes of the brain [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: A huge volume of evidence suggests that consciousness emerges from the activity of the cerebral cortex, and in particular from the frontal lobes. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.298) | |
| A reaction: Dualists must face up to this, and even many physicalists have a rather vague notion about the location of awareness, but we are clearly homing in very precise physical substances which have consciousness as a feature. |
| 4905 | Normal babies seem to have overlapping sense experiences [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Connections in a baby's brain probably give the infant the experience of 'seeing' sounds and 'hearing' colours - which occasionally continues into adulthood, where it is known as 'synaesthesia'. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 19) | |
| A reaction: A fact to remember when discussing secondary qualities, and the relativism involved in the way we perceive the world. If you have done your philosophy right, you shouldn't be surprised by this discovery. |
| 4918 | In blindsight V1 (normal vision) is inactive, but V5 (movement) lights up [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Scans show that a sub-section of the visual cortex called V5 - the area that registers movement - lights up during blindsight, even though V1 - the primary sensory area that is essential for normal sight - is not active. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.307) | |
| A reaction: The whole point of blindsight is to make us realise that vision involves not one module, but a whole team of them. The inference is that V1 involves consciousness, but other areas of the visual cortex don't. |
| 4912 | Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.187) | |
| A reaction: This is only a speculation, but it is an effect which can be caused by brain injury, and dualists should face the possibility that this evidence (prized by many dualists) can have a physical explanation. |
| 4903 | Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The pattern of brain activation during, say, a word retrieval task is usually similar enough among the dozen or so participants who typically take part in such studies for their scans to be overlaid and still show a clear pattern. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't surprise me, though it could be interpreted as supporting type-type identity, or as supporting functionalism. Armstrong and Lewis endorse a sort of reductive functionalism which would fit this observation. |
| 4920 | Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The nuts and bolts of thinking - holding ideas in mind and manipulating them - takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.312) | |
| A reaction: Keep this firmly in view! Imagine that the skull is transparent, and brain activity moves in waves of colour. Dualism would, in those circumstances, never have even occurred to anyone. |
| 4906 | Babies show highly emotional brain events, but may well be unaware of them [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Babies show emotion dramatically, but the areas of the brain that in adults are linked to the conscious experience of emotions are not active in newborn babies. Such emotions may therefore be unconscious. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 19) | |
| A reaction: Traditionally, 'unconscious emotion' is a contradiction, but I think we should accept this new evidence and rethink the nature of mind. Not only might emotion be non-conscious, but we should even consider that rational thinking could be too. |
| 4909 | The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: We try to manipulate our emotions all the time, but all we are doing is arranging the outside world so it triggers certain emotions - we cannot control our reactions directly. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.155) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to throw a very illuminating light on a huge amount of human behaviour, such as going to the cinema or listening to music. The romantic movement encouraged direct internal manipulation. Compare sex fantasies with viewing pornography. |
| 4914 | A frog will starve to death surrounded by dead flies [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: A frog will starve to death surrounded by dead flies. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.195) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning against assuming that rationality is operating when a frog feels hungry and 'decides' to have lunch. We should take comfort from the fact that humans are NOT this stupid, and philosophers should try to accurately describe our gift. |
| 4907 | The 'locus coeruleus' is one of several candidates for the brain's 'pleasure centre' [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Noradrenaline is an excitatory chemical that induces physical and mental arousal and heightens mood. Production is centred in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus, which is one of several candidates for the brain's 'pleasure' centre. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 30) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me very morally desirable that people understand facts of this kind, so that they can be more objective about pleasure. Pleasure is one cog in the machine that makes a person, not the essence of human life. |
| 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 |
| 9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5) |
| 9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5) |
| 9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties'). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1) |
| 9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The contenders for the logical form of a law statement are 1) a universally quantified conditional, 2) a second-order relation between first-order universals, 3) a functional equivalence, and 4) a dispositional characteristic of a natural kind. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.3) |
| 9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A regularity-law does not explain its instances, because such laws play no role in determining or governing their instances. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: Good. It has always seemed to me entirely vacuous to explain an event simply by saying that it falls under some law. |
| 9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Pure regularities are not nearly as common as might have been thought, and are usually only to be found in simplified or idealized conditions. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Nancy Cartwright 1999 for this view] |
| 9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the fewer the instances, the more likely it is that there be a regularity, ..and if there are no cases at all, and no S is P, that is a regularity. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: [He attributes the second point to Molnar] |
| 9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: While it might be true that for all x, if Ax then Bx, would we really want to count it as a genuine regularity in nature if only five things were A (and all five were also B)? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) |
| 9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If the world really does have its own nomological structure, that a systematization merely describes, why are the laws not to be equated with the nomological structure itself, rather than with the system that describes it? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) |
| 9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The best systems theory (of Mill-Ramsey-Lewis) says that laws are not seen as regularities but, rather, as those things from which regularities - or rather, the whole world history including the regularities and everything else - can be derived. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: Put this way, the theory invites questions about ontology. Regularities are just patterns in physical reality, but axioms are propositions. So are they just features of human thought, or do these axioms actuallyr reside in reality. Too weak or too strong. |
| 9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The core of the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong view of the late 70s is that we have a law of nature when we have a relation of natural necessitation between universals. ..The innovation was that laws are about properties, and only indirectly about particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: It sounds as if we should then be able to know the laws of nature a priori, since that was Russell's 1912 definition of a priori knowledge. |
| 9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If there are laws that are instantiated in no particulars, then this would seem to favour the theory that laws connect universals rather than particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a dispute here between the Platonic view of uninstantiated universals (Tooley) and the Aristotelian instantiated view (Armstrong). Mumford and I prefer the dispositional account. |
| 9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If dispositional essentialism is granted, then there is a law of nature wherever there is an essential property of a natural kind; laws are just the havings of essential properties by natural kinds. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: [He is expounding Ellis's view] |
| 9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Where properties are possessed by all kind members, we must distinguish the accidental from essential ones by considering all actual and possible kind members. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is why we must treat possibilities as features of the actual world. |
| 9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The Central Dilemma about laws of nature is that, if they have some governing role, then they must be internal or external to the things governed, and it is hard to give a plausible account of either view. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.2) | |
| A reaction: This dilemma is the basis of Mumford's total rejection of 'laws of nature'. I think I agree. |
| 9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws are a solution to a problem that was misconceived. Only if you think that the world would be otherwise inactive or inanimate, do you have the need to add laws to your ontology. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a bold and extreme view - and I agree with it. I consider laws to be quite a useful concept when discussing nature, but they are not part of the ontology, and they don't do any work. They are metaphysically hopeless. |
| 9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws do not appear in Aristotle's metaphysics, and it wasn't until Descartes and Newton that laws entered the intellectual mainstream. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 5470. |
| 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. |