85 ideas
3508 | Correspondence to the facts HAS to be the aim of enquiry [Searle] |
Full Idea: It does not matter whether "true" does mean corresponds to the facts, because "corresponds to the facts" does mean corresponds to the facts, and any discipline that aims to describe how the world is aims for this correspondence. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.V) |
16588 | I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I sooner judged that what lacks all form does not exist, than thought of as something in between form and nothing, neither formed nor nothing, unformed and next to nothing. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XII.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1 | |
A reaction: Scholastics were struck by the contrast between this remark, and the remark of Averroes (Idea 16587) that prime matter was halfway existence. Their two great authorities disagreed! This sort of thing stimulated the revival of metaphysics. |
3473 | Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes [Searle] |
Full Idea: I find at least five different senses of "reduction" in the literature - ontological (genes/DNA), property ontological (heat/mean molecular energy), theoretical (gas laws/statistics), logical/definitional (average plumber), and causal (solids/molecules). | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.II) | |
A reaction: A useful pointer towards some much needed clearer thought about reduction. It is necessary to cross reference this list against reductions which are either ontological or epistemological or linguistic. |
3532 | Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient [Maslin on Searle] |
Full Idea: Searle's defence of causally efficacious supervenient mind won't work, because, unlike the mind, the solidity of a piston is not a distinct and separate phenomenon from its microstructure. | |
From: comment on John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.6 | |
A reaction: Searle struggles to find analogies for his position - and that, in my view, is highly significant in the philosophy of mind. If there is nothing else like your proposed theory, it is probably just human vainglory. |
3533 | Is supervenience just causality? [Searle, by Maslin] |
Full Idea: For Searle the supervenience relation is just causality. | |
From: report of John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.6 | |
A reaction: 'Supervenience' seems, in that case, to be an irrelevant word, which was only used when the mind-body connection was a bit loose and mysterious. Mind is identical to brain, or a property of the brain. I like 'process of the brain'. |
22979 | Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I am told that I can ask three sorts of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.10) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a very Aristotelian approach. I am pleased to see that what it is and what sort it is are not conflated. The first one must be its individual essence, and the second its generic essence. |
3454 | Reality is entirely particles in force fields [Searle] |
Full Idea: One can accept the obvious facts of physics, that the world consists entirely of physical particles in fields of force. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Intro) | |
A reaction: I agree with this proposal, with the cautious proviso that physics may discover further basic aspects to reality. The only obstacles to this view are possible divine and mental substances, neither of which is supported by adequate evidence. |
3471 | Some properties depend on components, others on their relations [Searle] |
Full Idea: Some system features cannot be figured out just from the composition of the elements of the system and environmental relations; they have to be explained in terms of causal relations among the elements. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.I) | |
A reaction: One must explain at the molecular level why an apple skin is both red and smooth. In the brain one must explain the movement of glucose and the contents of thoughts by their causal relations (I say). |
3472 | Fully 'emergent' properties contradict our whole theory of causation [Searle] |
Full Idea: The existence of any fully 'emergent' properties (that have a life of their own) violates even the weakest principle of the transitivity of causation. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.I) | |
A reaction: When Searle talks like this, he sounds like a thoroughgoing reductive physicalist (but is he really?). Any philosopher of mind who uses the word 'emergence' must say EXACTLY what they mean by it. |
3490 | Beliefs only make sense as part of a network of other beliefs [Searle] |
Full Idea: To have one belief or desire, I have to have a whole network of other beliefs and desires. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.I) |
3491 | Beliefs are part of a network, and also exist against a background [Searle] |
Full Idea: We need to postulate a network of beliefs, and also a background of capacities that are not themselves part of the network. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.I) |
3482 | Perception is a function of expectation [Searle] |
Full Idea: Psychologists have a lot of evidence to show that perception is a function of expectation. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 6.I.7) |
22977 | I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I can distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets, even though there is no scent at all in my nostrils. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: Augustine has a nice introspective account of how we experience memory, and identifies lots of puzzling features. I know I can identify the smell of vinegar, but I can't bring it to mind, the way I can the appearance of roses. |
22981 | Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The mind and the memory are one and the same. We even call the memory the mind, for when we tell a person to remember something, we tell them to 'bear this in mind', and when we forget something 'it slipped out of my mind'. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: This idea has become familiar in modern neuroscience, I think, presumably because we do not find distinct types of neurons for consciousness and for memory. |
22980 | Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The memory contains the innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these can have been conveyed to me by the bodily senses. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.12) | |
A reaction: Even if you have a fairly empirical view of the sources of mathematics (a view with which I sympathise), it must by admitted that our endless extrapolations from the sources also reside in memory. So we remember thoughts as well as experiences. |
3493 | Memory is mainly a guide for current performance [Searle] |
Full Idea: We should think of memory as a mechanism for generating current performance, including conscious thoughts and actions, on the basis of past experience. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.III) | |
A reaction: This seems to be falling into the fallacy of causal and functional theories, which Searle normally dislikes. If memory serves to aid current performance, that doesn't say what memory IS, any more than a foot is defined by walking. |
22983 | We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine] |
Full Idea: If we had to experience sorrow or fear every time that we mentioned these emotions, no one would be willing to speak of them. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: Remembering the death of a loved one can trigger fresh grief, but remembering their dangerous illness from which they recovered no longer contains the feeling of fear. |
22982 | Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: How can it be that my mind can be happy because of the joy that is in it, and yet my memory is not sad by reason of the sadness that is in it? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: This seems to contradict his thought in Idea 22981, that memory and mind are the same. Recall seems to be a part of consciousness which is not fully wired up to the rest of the mind. |
3463 | We don't have a "theory" that other people have minds [Searle] |
Full Idea: Except when doing philosophy there is no "problem" of other minds, because we do not hold a "hypothesis" or "belief" or "supposition" that other people are conscious. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 3.IV) | |
A reaction: Our commitment to other minds is so deep-ingrained that it is a candidate for one of Hume's 'natural beliefs', or even (a step further) for an innate idea. Babies have an innate recognition of faces, so why can't an expectation of a mind be hard-wired? |
3457 | Other minds are not inferred by analogy, but are our best explanation [Searle] |
Full Idea: If we inferred other minds simply from behaviour, we would conclude that radios are conscious; it is rather the combination of behaviour with knowledge of the causal underpinnings of behaviour. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.V.4) | |
A reaction: Personally I am inclined to think that Searle has said the last word on the fairly uninteresting problem of other minds. Dualism generates a deep privacy problem, and analogy is a flawed argument, but best explanation is exactly what we rely on. |
3480 | We experience unity at an instant and across time [Searle] |
Full Idea: We experience 'horizontal unity' in the organisation of conscious experiences through short stretches of time, and 'vertical unity' in simultaneous awareness of diverse features of our experience. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 6.I.2) | |
A reaction: See Betjeman's poem "On the Ninth Green at St Enedoc". The brain is an information-unification machine, and 'I' am located at the crossroads where these unifications meet. Analysis of mind is good for us, but so is reunification afterwards. |
22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind. |
3479 | The mind experiences space, but it is not experienced as spatial [Searle] |
Full Idea: Although we experience objects both spatially and temporally, our consciousness itself is not experienced as spatial, though it is experienced as temporally extended. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: This observation was made by Descartes. This seems to require that I experience objects spatially, AND experience my consciousness. Do I experience the time passing, as well as the river moving? Einstein says if it is in time, it must be in space. |
3470 | Conscious creatures seem able to discriminate better [Searle] |
Full Idea: Apparently it is just a fact of biology that organisms that have consciousness have, in general, much greater powers of discrimination than those that do not. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.III) | |
A reaction: This presupposes knowledge of which creatures are conscious. Clearly colour vision gives more information than monochrome vision. But presumably a computer could process more visual information than I could see. It doesn't have a fovea centralis. |
3486 | Unconscious thoughts are those capable of causing conscious ones [Searle] |
Full Idea: The ontology of the unconscious consists in objective features of the brain capable of causing subjective conscious thoughts. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.II.7) | |
A reaction: As it stands, this definition would fit a brain tumour. I think Searle is wrong. There is no sharp line between conscious and non-conscious brain events. Research has surely made it clear that dim brain events directly intrude into my conscious states. |
3503 | Consciousness results directly from brain processes, not from some intermediary like information [Searle] |
Full Idea: There are brain processes and consciousness, but nothing in between; no rule following, information processing, unconscious inferences, mental models, language of thought or universal grammar. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.II) | |
A reaction: The core of Searle's view. He likes to call consciousness a 'property' of brains. Edelman says consciousness IS a brain process. Essentially I agree with Searle. An unusual physical object can produce consciousness, but mere 'rules' etc. cannot. |
3465 | Either there is intrinsic intentionality, or everything has it [Searle] |
Full Idea: If you deny the distinction between intrinsic and derived ('as-if') intentionality, then it follows that everything in the universe has intentionality (for example, stones seem to want to fall). | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 3.IV) | |
A reaction: Searle makes this claim because he always takes mental phenomena like intentionality or consciousness to be all-or-nothing - and he's wrong. He refuses to acknowledge non-conscious intentional states - and he's wrong again. |
3484 | Water flowing downhill can be described as if it had intentionality [Searle] |
Full Idea: Water flowing downhill can be described AS IF it had intentionality: it tries to get to the bottom by seeking the line of least resistance through information processing and calculation… | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.II.1) | |
A reaction: John Searle could be described as if he had intentionality, as his neurons chart their way through the information and desires that flood them. I am wary of his all-or-nothing approach to intentionality. |
3489 | Intentional phenomena only make sense within a background [Searle] |
Full Idea: Intentional phenomena such as meanings, understandings, interpretations, beliefs, desires, and experiences only function within a set of Background capacities that are not themselves intentional. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.I) | |
A reaction: Why would the background not be intentional? Presumably the background is a set of beliefs about, or images of, how the world is taken to be. |
3494 | Intentionality is defined in terms of representation [Searle] |
Full Idea: Intentionality is defined in terms of representation. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.III) | |
A reaction: Sounds okay, but representation of a tree (say) can be understood in imagistic terms, whereas extremely abstract concepts are a bit baffling. Then we realise that we conceive trees in that way as well, not as images. |
3481 | Consciousness is essential and basic to intentionality [Searle] |
Full Idea: I claim that only a being that could have conscious intentional states could have intentional states at all, and every unconscious intentional state is at least potentially conscious. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 6.I.5) | |
A reaction: The alternative to this is that robots and lower animals might have non-conscious states which are about something, because they process useful information but are unaware of it. If so, parts of the human mind might do the same, as in blindsight. |
4088 | Pain is not intentional, because it does not represent anything beyond itself [Searle] |
Full Idea: If I am conscious of a pain, the pain is not intentional, because it does not represent anything beyond itself. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.1) | |
A reaction: Crane quotes this to challenge it. Pain may be about apparent damage to the body. Pains are certainly informative. |
3467 | Neither introspection nor privileged access makes sense [Searle] |
Full Idea: We have the visual metaphor of introspection, and the spatial metaphor of privileged access, but neither one works because I am the thing being viewed, and I am the space being entered. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.II) | |
A reaction: This is quite a good warning against reliance on analogies when dealing with the unique problem of self-knowledge, though the phrase 'hall-of-mirrors' draws assent from most people concerning that topic. |
3483 | Introspection is just thinking about mental states, not a special sort of vision [Searle] |
Full Idea: If by "introspection" we mean simply thinking about our own mental states, then there is no objection to introspection, but if we mean a special capacity like vision of looking inwards, there is no such capacity. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 6.II.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to beg the question of how we can be aware of our mental states in order to think about them. One might image that some animals have mental states, but are quite unaware that they have them, because they are totally focused on content. |
3468 | I cannot observe my own subjectivity [Searle] |
Full Idea: I cannot observe my own subjectivity. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.II) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite clear what Searle is complaining about. He knows very clearly that there is a subjective aspect to his life - so how does he know that fact? There must be something supporting this widely held belief. |
22984 | Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I do not understand the power of memory that is in myself, although without it I could not even speak of myself. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.16) | |
A reaction: Even if the self is not identical with memory, this idea seems to establish that memory is an essential aspect of the self. This point is neglected by those who see the self as an entity (the 'soul pearl') which persists through all experience. |
5982 | If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: How do prophets see the future, if there is not a future to be seen? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.17) | |
A reaction: The answer, I suspect, is that prophets can't see the future. The prospect that the future already exists would seem to saboutage human freedom and responsibility, and point to Calvinist predestination, and even fatalism. |
3469 | Mind and brain don't interact if they are the same [Searle] |
Full Idea: There is no "link" between consciousness and the brain, any more than there is a link between the liquidity of water and the H2O molecules. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.III) | |
A reaction: We say of some properties that 'x is F', and of others that 'x has F', and of others that 'x is F because of y' (as in a knife having sharpness because it is thin and hard). Consciousness might fit the third case just as well as the first. |
3487 | Without internal content, a zombie's full behaviour couldn't be explained [Searle] |
Full Idea: There could be no intentional zombie, because (unlike with a conscious agent) there simply is no fact of the matter as to exactly which aspectual shapes its alleged intentional states have. Is it seeking water or H2O? | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.III) | |
A reaction: The obvious response to this is behaviourist talk of 'dispositions'. The dispositions of scientist when seeking water and when seeking H2O are different. Zombies behave identically to us, so their intentional states have whatever is needed to do the job. |
3458 | Mental states only relate to behaviour contingently, not necessarily [Searle] |
Full Idea: I believe that the relation of mental states to behaviour is purely contingent. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.V.5) | |
A reaction: I don't think I agree, though it will depend on where you draw the line between mental states and behaviour. Since there have never been two identical states since the beginning of time, it is a little hard to test this one. |
3485 | Wanting H2O only differs from wanting water in its mental component [Searle] |
Full Idea: If a person exhibits water-seeking behaviour, they also exhibit H2O-seeking behaviour, so there is no way the behaviour itself, without reference to a mental component, can constitute wanting water rather than H2O. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.II.4) | |
A reaction: What about the behaviour of responding to the discovery that this stuff isn't actually H2O? Or the disposition to choose the real thing rather than ersatz water? An interesting comment, though. |
3461 | Functionalists like the externalist causal theory of reference [Searle] |
Full Idea: Functionalism has been rejuvenated by being joined to externalist causal theories of reference. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 2.VIII) | |
A reaction: This, however, seems to be roughly the reason why Putnam gave up his functionalist theory. See Ideas 2332 and 2071. However the causal network of mind can incorporate environmental features. |
3496 | A program for Chinese translation doesn't need to understand Chinese [Searle] |
Full Idea: A computer, me for example, could run the steps in the program for some mental capacity, such as understanding Chinese, without understanding a word of Chinese. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.II) | |
A reaction: I don't think this is true. I could recite a bit of Chinese without comprehension, but giving flexible answers to complex questions isn't plausible just by gormlessly implementing a procedure. |
3499 | Computation presupposes consciousness [Searle] |
Full Idea: Most of the works I have seen in the computational theory of the mind commit some variation on the homunculus fallacy. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.VI) | |
A reaction: This will be because there is an unspoken user for the inner computer. But see Fodor's view (Idea 2506). The key idea here is Dennett's: that not all regresses are vicious. My mind controller isn't like all of me. |
3501 | If we are computers, who is the user? [Searle] |
Full Idea: If the brain is a digital computer, we are still faced with the question 'Who is the user?' | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.VI) | |
A reaction: A very nice question. Our whole current concept of a computer involves the unmentioned user. We don't have to go all mystical about persons, though. Robots aren't logically impossible. |
3453 | Property dualism is the reappearance of Cartesianism [Searle] |
Full Idea: Opponents of materialism tend to embrace "property dualism", thus accepting the Cartesian apparatus that I had thought long discredited. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Intro) | |
A reaction: This seems to be precisely the current situation. Cartesian dualism is thoroughly marginalised (but still whimpering in the corner), and the real battle is between physicalism and property dualism. The latter is daft. |
3455 | Property dualists tend to find the mind-body problem baffling [Searle] |
Full Idea: Property dualists (e.g. Nagel and McGinn) think that the mind-body problem is frightfully difficult, perhaps altogether insoluble. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.I) | |
A reaction: Nagel's problem is that our concepts aren't up to it; McGinn's is that the very structure of our minds isn't up to it. My view is that the difficulty is the complexity we are up against, not the ontology. |
3456 | Consciousness is a brain property as liquidity is a water property [Searle] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is a higher-level or emergent property of the brain, but only in the sense that solidity is an emergent property of water when it is ice, and liquidity when it melts. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.IV) | |
A reaction: It is hard to know which side Searle is on. These examples are highly reductive, and make him a thoroughgoing reductive physicalist (with which I agree). |
3475 | Property dualism denies reductionism [Searle] |
Full Idea: What is property dualism but the view that there are irreducible mental properties? | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.III) | |
A reaction: Being red and being square are separate, but they are both entailed by the material basis, and hence are reducible. Properties may not link directly, but they must link indirectly. |
3478 | Upwards mental causation makes 'supervenience' irrelevant [Searle] |
Full Idea: Once you recognise the existence of bottom-up, micro to macro forms of causation, the notion of supervenience no longer does any work in philosophy. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if the notion of supervenience ever did any work. Davidson only fished up the word because none of the normal relationships between things seemed to apply (and he was wrong about that). |
3476 | Mind and brain are supervenient in respect of cause and effect [Searle] |
Full Idea: Mind is supervenient on brain in the following respect: type-identical neurophysiological causes have type-identical mentalistic effects. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) | |
A reaction: An interesting statement of what might be meant by 'supervenience'. Searle's version implies necessity in the link (but not identity). I take him to imply that a zombie is impossible. |
3477 | If mind-brain supervenience isn't causal, this implies epiphenomenalism [Searle] |
Full Idea: There are constitutive and causal notions of supervenience. Kim claims that mental events have no causal role, and merely supervene on brain events which do (which implies epiphenomenalism). But it seems obvious that mind is caused by brain. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) | |
A reaction: Personally I think the whole discussion is doomed to confusion because it is riddled with a priori dualism. There is no all-or-nothing boundary between 'mind' and 'brain'. Kim's views have changed. |
3531 | Mental events can cause even though supervenient, like the solidity of a piston [Searle] |
Full Idea: That mental features supervene on neuronal features in no way diminishes their causal efficacy. The solidity of the piston is supervenient on its molecular structure, but this does not make solidity epiphenomenal. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.V) | |
A reaction: Searle's examples never seem to quite fit what he is saying. Molecules and solidity are supervenient because they are identical (solidity is the presence of certain molecules). Solidity doesn't have causal powers that molecules lack. |
3466 | Consciousness seems indefinable by conditions or categories [Searle] |
Full Idea: We can't define "consciousness" by necessary and sufficient conditions, or by the Aristotelian method of genus and differentia. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 4.I) | |
A reaction: We may not be able to 'define' it, but we can 'characterise' it. The third approach to definition is a catalogue of essential properties, which might tail off rather vaguely. |
9317 | Searle argues that biology explains consciousness, but physics won't explain biology [Searle, by Kriegel/Williford] |
Full Idea: Searle appears to argue that phenomenal consciousness is explained in biological terms, but that biological properties are irreducible to purely (micro)physical ones. | |
From: report of John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992]) by U Kriegel / K Williford - Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' n1 | |
A reaction: Searle is very hard to pin down, and this account suggests the reason very clearly - because he is proposing something which is bizarrely implausible. The reduction of biology-to-physics looks much more likely than consciousness-to-biology. |
3474 | If mind is caused by brain, does this mean mind IS brain? [Searle] |
Full Idea: I hold a view of mind/brain relations that is a form of causal reduction (mental features are caused by biological processes), but does this imply ontological reduction? (…No!) | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 5.II.5) | |
A reaction: What exactly is his claim? Presumably 'causal reduction' implies identity of (philosophical) substance. This seems to imply 'emergence' in a rather old-fashioned and dramatic way, though elsewhere Searle denies this. |
3500 | Can the homunculus fallacy be beaten by recursive decomposition? [Searle] |
Full Idea: The idea (of Dennett and others) is that recursive decomposition will eliminate the homunculi. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.VI) | |
A reaction: Lycan is the best exponent of this view, which I like. My brain clearly has a substantial homunculus which I call my PA; it regularly reminds of what I have to do in an hour's time. I am sure it is composed of smaller brain components working as a team. |
3497 | If mind is multiply realisable, it is possible that anything could realise it [Searle] |
Full Idea: The same principle that implies multiple realisability would seem to imply universal realisability. …Any object whatever could have syntactical ascriptions made to it. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.V) | |
A reaction: This leads to rather weak reductio objections to functionalism. Logically there may be no restriction on how to implement a mind, but naturally there are very tight restrictions. Stick to neurons seems the best strategy. |
3462 | We don't postulate folk psychology, we experience it [Searle] |
Full Idea: We do not postulate beliefs and desires to account for anything; we simply experience conscious beliefs and desires. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 2 App) | |
A reaction: Searle is too fond of reporting what we 'simply' know. Beliefs and desires are pushed forward by a cultural tradition. What I actually experience is a confusion, always laced with emotion. |
22976 | Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine] |
Full Idea: In memory everything is preserved separately, according to its category. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the first seeds of the idea that the mind functions by means of mental files. Our memories of cats are 'close to' or 'linked to' our memories of dogs. |
3498 | Computation isn't a natural phenomenon, it is a way of seeing phenomena [Searle] |
Full Idea: Computational states are not discovered within the physics, they are assigned to the physics. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 9.V) | |
A reaction: The key idea in Searle's later thinking, with which I have some sympathy. There always seems to be a sneaky dualism buried deep in Searle's physicalism. Computation is very high-level physics. |
3492 | Content is much more than just sentence meaning [Searle] |
Full Idea: Sentence meaning radically underdetermines the content of what is said. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.II) | |
A reaction: We have body language, and we have tone, and we have context, and we have speaker's and listener's meanings. I take sentence meaning to be the basis which makes the rest possible. |
3464 | There is no such thing as 'wide content' [Searle] |
Full Idea: I don't believe in the existence of 'wide content'. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 3.IV) | |
A reaction: I sort of agree, but if I accept the rulings of experts (e.g. that water is really H2O), I am admitting that what I mean may not be in my head. |
3506 | We explain behaviour in terms of actual internal representations in the agent [Searle] |
Full Idea: In intentional explanations of behaviour patterns in the behaviour are explained by the fact that the agent has a representation of that very pattern in its intentional apparatus, which functions causally in the production of the behaviour. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.IV) | |
A reaction: Problem cases would be where someone's behaviour doesn't come out quite as planned (e.g. the sentence spoken failed to match the proposition intended), and panic behaviour. |
3451 | Meaning is derived intentionality [Searle] |
Full Idea: Meaning is derived intentionality. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Intro) | |
A reaction: That still leaves something very difficult to explain - how the intentionality of mental events can be 'transferred' to symbolic forms which can exist outside the mind. |
3450 | Philosophy of language is a branch of philosophy of mind [Searle] |
Full Idea: On my view, the philosophy of language is a branch of the philosophy of mind. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Intro) | |
A reaction: Inclined to agree with this. Intentionality and meaning are virtually the same thing. The role of language in thought has been grossly overrated in modern philosophy. |
3507 | Universal grammar doesn't help us explain anything [Searle] |
Full Idea: No further predictive or explanatory power is added by saying that there is in addition a level of deep unconscious rules of universal grammar. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.IV) | |
A reaction: I would have thought that neuroscientists would be very interested in this prediction, if it were convincing enough. Nothing to stop us from trying to infer the nature of something which is beyond our reach. |
3495 | Shared Background makes translation possible, though variation makes it hard [Searle] |
Full Idea: Difference in local Backgrounds make translation from one language to another difficult; the commonality of deep Background makes it possible at all. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.V) | |
A reaction: That is a very good observation about what is normally swept under the one umbrella of the 'principle of charity'. Quine exaggerated the local, and Davidson exaggerated the deep. |
3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |
Full Idea: If the only thing that interested us about the heart was that it made a thumping noise, we would have a completely different conception of its "functioning", and correspondingly of heart disease. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.III) | |
A reaction: Ditto if we were only interested in ears as support for earrings, but that would seriously miss the point of ears. The intrinsic function is the reason for its existence. |
22985 | Everyone wants happiness [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Surely happiness is what everyone wants, so much so that there can be none who do not want it? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.20) | |
A reaction: His concept of happiness is, of course, religious. Occasionally you meet habitual grumblers about life who give the impression that they are only happy when they are discontented. So happiness is achieving desires, not feeling good? |
20759 | Feelings are prior to intelligence; we should be content to live with our simplest feelings [Rousseau] |
Full Idea: To exist is to feel, our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas. …Let us be simpler and less pretentious; let us be content with the first feelings we experience in ourselves. | |
From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Emile: treatise on education [1762], p.210), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Moods' | |
A reaction: Beginning of the sentimental movement, and precursor to romanticism, but here seen as the basis for the existentialist concept of authenticity. Wallowing in emotions doesn't appeal to me, but you have to make space for them. Rousseau loved walking. |
19854 | We all owe labour in return for our keep, and every idle citizen is a thief [Rousseau] |
Full Idea: In a society where a man has to live at others' expense, he owes in labour the price of his keep; and that is without exception. Work, then, is an indispensable social obligation. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, every idle citizen is a thief. | |
From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Emile: treatise on education [1762], Bk III) | |
A reaction: Presumably rich landowners who live on rents can justify their position by good husbandry, at a higher level than tilling the soil. But Bertie Wooster won't last long in Rousseau's new world. This is a big challenge to the welfare state. |
3504 | Chemistry entirely explains plant behaviour [Searle] |
Full Idea: Variable secretions of auxin account for a plant's behaviour in following the sun, without any extra hypothesis of purpose, teleology, or intentionality. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.II) |
5984 | Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I begin to wonder whether time is an extension of the mind itself. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.26) | |
A reaction: The observation that the mind creates a 'specious present' (spreading experience out over a short fraction of second) reinforces this. Personally I like David Marshall's proposal that consciousness is entirely memory, which would deny this idea. |
22888 | To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon] |
Full Idea: Augustine answers that for us to be aware of time it must exist only in the mind, …and the difference between past and future is just the difference between memory and anticipation. | |
From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
A reaction: This is an extreme idealist view. Are we to say that the past consists only of what can be remembered, and the future only of what is anticipated? Absurd anti-realism, in my view. Where do his concepts come from, asks Le Poidevin. |
5980 | How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: A short time ago or a short time ahead we might put at ten days, but how can anything which does not exist be either long or short? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
A reaction: A nice question, which gets at the paradoxical nature of time very nicely. How can it be long, but non-existent? We could break the paradox by concluding '..and therefore time does exist', even though we can't see how. |
5979 | If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Of the three divisions of time, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
A reaction: This is the oldest bewilderment about time, which naturally leads us to the thought that time cannot actually 'exist'. The remark implies that at least 'now' is safe, but that also succumbs to paradox pretty quickly. |
5981 | The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: We cannot say that the whole of the current year is present, and if the whole of it is not present, the year is not present. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
A reaction: Another nice way of presenting the paradox of time. We are in a particular year, so it has to be real. |
5978 | I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I know well enough what time is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
A reaction: A justly famous remark, even though it adds nothing to our knowledge of time. This sort of thought pushes us towards accepting many things as axiomatic, such as time, space, identity, persons, mind. |
5983 | I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I once heard a learned man say that time is nothing but the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars, but I do not agree. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.22) | |
A reaction: It is tempting to say that you either take time or movement as axiomatic, and describe one in terms of the other, but you are stuck unable to give the initial statement of the axiom without mentioning the second property you were saving for later. |
5977 | Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The fact that heaven and earth are there proclaims that they were created, for they are subject to change and variation; ..the meaning of change and variation is that something is there which was not there before. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.04) | |
A reaction: It seems possible that the underlying matter is eternal (as in various conservation laws, such as that of energy), and that all change is in the form rather than the substance. |
3502 | Mind involves fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating [Searle] |
Full Idea: Our conscious life involves the famous "four f's", fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.I) |
3459 | You can only know the limits of knowledge if you know the other side of the limit [Searle] |
Full Idea: To know the limits of knowledge, we would have to know both sides of the limit. | |
From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 1.V.6) |
22887 | If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon] |
Full Idea: If nothing existed by God before creation, then what could have happened to, or within, God that led God to decide to create the universe at that particular moment? Why would an eternal or perfect being want or need to change? | |
From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
A reaction: I suppose you could reply that change is superior to stasis, but then why did God delay the creation? |
5976 | If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: O Lord, since you are outside time in eternity, are you unaware of the things that I tell you? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.01) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the single most difficult and most elusive question about the nature of a supreme divine being. If the being is trapped in time, as we are, it is greatly diminished, and if it is outside, it is hard to see how it could be a participant. |