4 ideas
18438 | Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine] |
Full Idea: Nothing happens in the world, not the flutter of an eyelid, not the flicker of a thought, without some redistribution of microphysical states. | |
From: Willard Quine (on Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking' [1978], p.98) | |
A reaction: Is this causation, identity, or baffling supervenience? |
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. |
22688 | The Aristotelian idea that choices can be perceived needs literary texts to expound it [Nussbaum] |
Full Idea: To show forth the Aristotelian claim that 'the decision rests with perception', we need - either side by side with a philosophical outline or inside it - literary texts which display the complexity, indeterminacy, and sheer difficulty of moral choice. | |
From: Martha Nussbaum (The Golden Bowl, and Lit as Moral Philosophy [1983], II) | |
A reaction: Berys Gaut observes that this depends on a particularist view of moral choice (usually seen as Aristotelian), with little interest in principles. |