Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Sign of Four', 'Statistical Explanation' and 'The Problem of Consciousness'

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4 ideas

14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction

22200	If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
	Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
	From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
	A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation

14366	An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens]
	Full Idea: On Salmon's statistical relevance view, an explanation is a table of statistical information.
	From: report of Wesley Salmon (Statistical Explanation [1970]) by Michael Strevens - No Understanding without Explanation 1
	A reaction: [He cites W.Salmon 1970] When put like that the view sounds incredibly implausible, but maybe a reading of Salmon would improve the case for it.

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 6. Mysterianism

7388	McGinn invites surrender, by saying it is hopeless trying to imagine conscious machines [Dennett on McGinn]
	Full Idea: McGinn invites his readers to join him in surrender: It's just impossible to imagine how software could make a conscious robot. Don't even try, he says. Other philosophical experiments (involving China) "work" by dissuading readers from imagining.
	From: comment on Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.1
	A reaction: I agree with Dennett. If you don't try to imagine how robots might do it, you are also denied the right to try to imagine how brains might manage it. Admittedly this is hard, but good imagination needs study, effort, discussion, time, information...

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability

3185	Multiple realisability rules out hidden essences and experts as the source of water- and gold-concepts [McGinn]
	Full Idea: The multiple realisability emphasised by functionalists rules out the hidden essences (and the 'deferential' move in semantics) that one finds in the cases, for example, of "water" and "gold" emphasised by Kripke and Putnam.
	From: Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991], p.132)
	A reaction: Presumably if they are 'hidden', then the people to whom we 'defer' for our concepts can't actually know about the essences we are supposed to be discussing. You can mean essences without knowing them. Cf. Loch Ness Monster.