Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Sweet Dreams', 'Letters to Samuel Masson' and 'Scientific Thought'

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11 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / d. Actual infinite
13190 I don't admit infinite numbers, and consider infinitesimals to be useful fictions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Notwithstanding my infinitesimal calculus, I do not admit any real infinite numbers, even though I confess that the multitude of things surpasses any finite number, or rather any number. ..I consider infinitesimal quantities to be useful fictions.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Masson [1716], 1716)
     A reaction: With the phrase 'useful fictions' we seem to have jumped straight into Harty Field. I'm with Leibniz on this one. The history of mathematics is a series of ingenious inventions, whenever they seem to make further exciting proofs possible.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
14759 A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad]
     Full Idea: A thing is simply a long event, throughout the course of which there is either qualitative similarity or continuous qualitative change, together with a characteristic spatio-temporal unity.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], 10 'Duration')
     A reaction: At least he is trying to give some sort of principle that links the stages of the event together.
11842 If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad]
     Full Idea: We call a lightning flash or a motor accident an event, but refuse to apply this to the cliffs of Dover. ...But quantitative differences (of time) give no good grounds for calling one bit of history an event, and refusing the name to another bit.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], p.54), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 2.3 n13
     A reaction: Wiggins calls this proposal a 'terrible absurdity', but it seems to me to demand attention. There is a case to be made for a 'process' to be the fundamental category of our ontology, with stable physical objects seen in that light.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
7658 Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett]
     Full Idea: If you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.8)
     A reaction: This is a good point - it seems daft to reify qualia and imagine them dangling in mid-air with all their vibrant qualities - but that is a long way from saying there is nothing more to qualia than functional roles. Functions must be exlained too.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
7655 The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett]
     Full Idea: All the work done by the imagined homunculus in the Cartesian Theater must be distributed among various lesser agencies in the brain, none of which is conscious.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Dennett's account crucially depends on consciousness being much more fragmentary than most philosophers claim it to be. It is actually full of joints, which can come apart. He may be right.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
7657 Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett]
     Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6)
     A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
7656 I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett]
     Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
7654 What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett]
     Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1)
     A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
8160 The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: Not only the present but also the past exist, but the future (so long as it is the future) does not.
     From: report of C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923]) by Michael Dummett - Thought and Reality 1
     A reaction: This is quite appealing, and seems right if you believe that every truth has a truthmaker, and that there are no truths about the future. And yet the whole misery of people dying is that they cease to exist.
14609 We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad]
     Full Idea: One theory accepts the reality of the present and the past, but holds that the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
     A reaction: This is now known as Broad's 'Growing Block' view of time. It is tempting to say that neither past nor future exist, but it seems undeniable that statements about the past can be wholly true, unlike those about the future.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
22933 We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad]
     Full Idea: We imagine presentness moving, like the spot of light from a policeman's bulls eye traversing the fronts of houses in a street. What is illuminated is present, what was illuminated is past, and what is not yet illuminated is the future.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
     A reaction: This is the 'moving spotlight' compromise theory, which retains the B-series eternal sequence of ordered events, but adds the A-series privileged present moment. Le Poidevin says Broad represents time twice over.