Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Unconscious Cerebral Initiative', 'Matter and Memory' and 'What is so bad about Contradictions?'

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5 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

9123	Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen]
	Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in.
	From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3
	A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'?

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming

21846	Bergson was a rallying point, because he emphasised becomings and multiplicities [Bergson, by Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Bergson was a rallying point for all the opposition, …not so much because of the theme of duration, as of the theory and practice of becoming of all kinds, of coexistent multiplicities.
	From: report of Henri Bergson (Matter and Memory [1896]) by Gilles Deleuze - A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? I
	A reaction: The three heroes of Deleuze are Spinoza, Nietzsche and Bergson. All philosophers are either of Being, or of Becoming, I suggest.

12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory

21854	Bergson showed that memory is not after the event, but coexists with it [Bergson, by Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Bergson has shown that memory is not an actual image which forms after the object has been perceived, but a virtual image coexisting with the actual perception of the object.
	From: report of Henri Bergson (Matter and Memory [1896]) by Gilles Deleuze - The Actual and the Virtual p.114
	A reaction: It strikes me as plausible to say that all conscious life is memory. Perceiving the present instant is only possible because it endures for a tiny moment.

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act

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.