30 ideas
2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73) | |
A reaction: [Idea of Varro] Just as unreliable witnesses are the bane of a murder enquiry, so bad philosophers throw a cloud of obscurity roundphilosophy. If 9999 people thought 2+2=4, but there is always one who thinks something different. |
2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Perhaps notions of necessary and sufficient conditions, and counterfactual considerations, are in some way grounded in awareness of ourselves as active interveners and experimenters in the world, not passive spectators. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.155) |
2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: I cannot think of a single philosophically interesting concept that has been successfully and nontrivially analysed to most people's satisfaction. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.121) |
2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Do the statements 'Sir Percy Blakeney is in Paris' and 'The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris' express different facts, or the same fact under different modes of presentation? | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.129) |
2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: It is one thing to see a building, and another to see it as a building, and yet another to see it as Buckingham Palace. How does the commonsense realist think that this is accomplished? | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.302) |
2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Dogs surely have beliefs, and beliefs call for some concepts or other. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.312) |
2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Empiricism is not just a theory of knowledge; it is also a theory meaning. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.149) |
2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Commonsense realism has to account for the subjective similarity of the genuine perception of a green surface and the experience of, say, an after-image. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.142) |
2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: It is estimated by Gierer (1988) that the human cerebral cortex alone contains about 300,000,000,000,000 synaptic junctions. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.46) | |
A reaction: As we grasp the vastness of this number, and the fact that the junctions are all active, the idea that a brain does something astonishing is not quite so surprising. |
2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Anyone who thinks phenomenal qualities are inseparable from our awareness of them, must think subconscious mental states are totally devoid of phenomenal qualities! So how can these states cause behaviour in the way conscious states do? | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.166) | |
A reaction: I agree with this thought, though it is beautifully unprovable. We would need to respond to a red traffic light, without having consciously registered its presence. It is is just increasingly clear that we register information pre-consciously. |
2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: I cannot make intuitive sense of there existing a being who possessed genuine beliefs and desires, but who, or which, lacked the capacity for consciousness altogether. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.44) | |
A reaction: This is part of the recent move (which strikes me as correct) to see qualia and intentionality as inseparable. We might well, though, need to adopt the 'intentional stance' to a sophisticated robot. But am I aware of all of my beliefs? |
2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: If one asks 'what does the world look like to a fish?' the answer may be 'it doesn't look like anything; fish find their way about by blindsight.' | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.56) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a real possibility, not just a wild speculation. It seems pretty obvious to me that I operate by blindsight in many aspects of my behaviour. Piano-playing would be impossible if all qualia had to be processed. |
2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: I am suggesting that introspective psychology might have a contribution to make to fundamental physics. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.176) | |
A reaction: I'm a fan of introspection, as a source of genuine information. |
2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Halting the slide into panpsychism is the major advantage of holding that phenomenal qualities can exist unsensed. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.170) | |
A reaction: Presumably unsensed phenomenal qualities would explain the discovery that we seem to make decisions before we are conscious of what we intend to do. That result certainly implied that consciousness had no real function. |
2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: If we assume that mental events are located in time, then it follows immediately, given special relativity, that they are also in space. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73) | |
A reaction: A powerful point. Of course, there might (you never know) be something which exists in time but not space (and thoughts clearly exist in time), but (as in Hume's argument against miracles), dualism will overthrow your other basic beliefs about nature. |
2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Philosophical behaviourism is an absurd theory. Practically the only philosophers who ever held it, at any rate in its crude form, were certain logical positivists. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.25) | |
A reaction: I presume Lockwood's target here is eliminativist behaviourism, as opposed to methodological behaviourism (which is a reasonable practice to adopt), and 'black box' behaviourism (which has been superseded by functionalism). |
2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: A favourite example of identity theorists is the identification of flashes of lightning with electrical discharges. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.71) | |
A reaction: Personally I prefer the analogy of the mind being like a waterfall - a non-mysterious physical process which has dramatic properties of its own. If minds must keep busy in order to be minds, they must be processes. |
19451 | When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: When, submerged in deep reflection, you forget both yourself and your surroundings, is it you who controls reason, or is it rather reason that controls and absorbs you? | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: A delightful question, even if it looks like a false dichotomy. I'm not sure what to make of 'me', if my reason can be subtracted from it. Aquinas was one the same wavelength here. |
2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: If the logical positivists established anything it is that there is no way of demarcating science from metaphysics. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.313) | |
A reaction: So many problems arise for philosophers because of the passion for 'demarcating' things. Close study, experiments, statistics and measurements occur in every walk of life. |
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. |
19450 | Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man; they are his highest powers, his absolute essence in so far as he is man, the purpose of his existence. Man exists in order to think, love and will. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: Feuerbach was a notable atheist, but adopts a religious style of language which modern atheists would find rather alien. Personally I love talk of ideals and perfections. Ideals have been discredited in modern times, but need a revival. |
2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: It is tempting to see the concept of causation as a product of reason rather than of perception or introspection; something that reason brings to bear on the data of sense, by way of imposing an explanatory order on them. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.154) |
2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
Full Idea: Somehow we have got it into our heads that time itself is a process of change. | |
From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.12) |
19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: What constitutes the essential difference between man and animal? The most simple, general, and most widely held answer to this question is consciousness. Consciousness is given only in the case of a being to whom his species ...is an object of thought. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: Rather speculative. Since other species cohabit and breed only with their fellow species members, one might have thought they were aware of them. |
19454 | A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: The concept of God depends on the concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom - a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. That a quality is possessed by God does not make it divine. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: This is part of Feuerbach's argument for atheism, but if you ask for the source of our human concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom, no one, I would have thought, could cite God for the role. |
19452 | The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: God is the manifestation of man's inner nature, his expressed self. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: Even if you are a deeply committed theist, you have to concede some of this point. The perfections attributed to God are usually of human qualities. Leibniz, though, says that God has an infinity of perfection, mostly unknown to us. |
19453 | If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: If love, goodness, and personality are human determinations, the being which constitutes their source and ...their presupposition is also an anthropomorphism; so is the existence of God. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: It is certainly a struggle for the imagination to grasp a being which is characterised by idealised versions of human virtues, and yet has an intrinsic nature which is utterly different from humanity. |
19449 | Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Religion is the consciousness of the infinite. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) |
19455 | Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: What is regarded as atheism today will be religion tomorrow. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: Modern critics of atheism frequently accuse it of being a new religion. I doubt whether Feuerbach is right, but it is a nice provocative idea. |