5 ideas
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 22442 | If lies were ever acceptable, with would undermine all duties based on contract [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on a contract, the law of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.30) | |
| A reaction: Should we keep contracts which are made by means of deception and coercion? Where could such absolute authority for contracts come from? Do contracts and treaties tend to lapse after a long period of time? |
| 22441 | The law will protect you if you tell a truth which results in murder [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If you have by a lie prevented someone bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you keep strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.29) | |
| A reaction: Shocking, from a supposedly great thinker. Cowardly hiding behind a perverse law. What would Kant do if the law were changed, to condemn someone who told a truth which would probably lead to a murder? Would he accept a jail sentence? |
| 8338 | A phenomenalist about objects has to be a regularity theorist about causation [Strawson,G] |
| Full Idea: If you are a phenomenalist about objects, then there is an important sense in which you ought to be a Regularity theorist about what causation is, in such objects. | |
| From: Galen Strawson (The Secret Connexion [1989], App C) | |
| A reaction: Strawson is denying that Hume is a phenomenalist. One might go a little further, and say that a phenomenalist should abandon the idea of causation (as Russell did). |