16 ideas
| 5806 | Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Belief is the power of metarepresentation. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I have always defined belief as 'commitment to truth', and this definition leaves out both parts. Where is the commitment? If hope is another metarepresentation, how does it differ from belief? I imagine things, not believing them to be true. |
| 5801 | A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A mouse can see and hear a piano being played, but believing is something else; it requires the concept of a piano, and understanding. Mice who hear pianos being played do not believe pianos are being played. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Are we to say that when a mouse hears a piano it has no beliefs at all? Might not a belief involve images, so that a mouse calls up appropriate images from previous experiences, which are in a grey area on the edge of belief? |
| 5802 | Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Representations are in the head, but their content is not; in this sense, the mind isn't in the head any more than stories (i.e. story contents) are in books. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.6) | |
| A reaction: This is the final consequence of Putnam's idea that meanings ain't in the head. Intentionality is an extraordinary bridge between the brain and the external world. The ontology of stories, and musical compositions, is one philosophy's deepest problems. |
| 5809 | Some activities are performed better without consciousness of them [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Some tasks (playing the piano, speaking foreign languages, playing fast sports) are best performed when the agent is largely unconscious of the details. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Ch.4 n16) | |
| A reaction: A significant point, but it supports the evolutionary view, which is that what matters is success, and consciousness will switch on or off, whichever promotes the activity best. |
| 5808 | Qualia are just the properties objects are represented as having [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The Representational Thesis of mind identifies the qualities of experience - qualia - with the properties objects are represented as having. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §3.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to challenge the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, of which I am very fond. Is 'looks beautiful' a property of an object? Is the feeling of anger a property of an object? Qualia are properties of brains? |
| 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. |
| 5807 | Introspection is the same as the experience one is introspecting [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Introspection has no phenomenology or, if it does, it always has the same phenomenology as the experience one is introspecting. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a difference between looking at a tree, and being aware of yourself looking at a tree. You can be faintly depressed, and then become aware that you are faintly depressed. He is nearly right. |
| 5803 | In a representational theory of mind, introspection is displaced perception [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: On a representational theory of the mind, introspection becomes an instance of displaced perception - knowledge of internal (mental) facts via an awareness of external (physical) objects. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds close to a behaviourist (e.g. Ryle) account of introspection, via observing one's own behaviour. The word 'displaced' is an easy one, concealing a multitude of questions. |
| 5805 | Introspection does not involve looking inwards [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The 'problem' of introspection evaporates once one understands that it is not a process in which one looks inward. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: I take it that when we introspect we look at the contents of thoughts, which are representations of the external world, on the whole. But surely only the connections of those contents with memories can be seen inwardly? |
| 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. |
| 5804 | A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably brain events bring the world into the mind, so the world must be mentioned in explaining the mind. Maybe 'externalism' sounds grand, but is stating the boringly obvious. Explanations of mind need no mention of external particulars. |
| 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. |
| 5800 | All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that all mental facts are representational facts, and that all representational facts are facts about informational functions. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Prol) | |
| A reaction: The first half of the thesis seems a bit difficult to disagree with, but that a fact is 'represented' may not be the essence of that fact. The biggest mystery is the content, not its representation. And everything is 'information' about everything else. |
| 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. |
| 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'. |
| 22230 | Sartre gradually realised that freedom is curtailed by the weight of situation [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: Sartre evolved from a notion of absolute freedom to one that truly takes into account the weight of situation. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (works [1950]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3 | |
| A reaction: This change seems to have come much later, in the 1960s. The main influence seems to have been Marxism, which claims that consciousness is created by society, rather than by free individuals. |