Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'talk' and 'works'

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3 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
We imagine small and large objects scaled to the same size, suggesting a fixed capacity for imagination [Lavers]
     Full Idea: If we think of a pea, and then of the Eiffel Tower, they seem to occupy the same space in our consciousness, suggesting that we scale our images to fit the available hardware, just as computer imagery is limited by the screen and memory available.
     From: Michael Lavers (talk [2003]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: Nice point. It is especially good because it reinforces a physicalist view of the mind from introspection, where most other evidence is external observation of brains (as Nietzsche reinforces determinism by introspection).
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 9. Counterfactual Claims
An event causes another just if the second event would not have happened without the first [Lewis, by Psillos]
     Full Idea: Lewis gives an account of causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals (roughly, an event c causes an event e iff if c had not happened then e would not have happened either).
     From: report of David Lewis (works [1973]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation Intro
     A reaction: This feels wrong to me. It is a version of Humean constant conjunction, but counterfactuals are too much a feature of our minds, and not sufficiently a feature of the world, to do this job. Tricky.