16700
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In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff]
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Full Idea:
It is clear from the way in which one must speak about time and other successive entities that talk about 'the present' must be enlarged. Otherwise it would have to be denied that any successive entity could exist, which is impossible.
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From:
John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
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A reaction:
This is a lovely idea, even if it is not quite clear what it means. The mind seems to stretch out the now anyway (as the 'specious present'), so why not embrace that in language and conscious thought?
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16701
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To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant [Wycliff]
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Full Idea:
If something is successive, it is successive with respect to its individual parts, which cannot exist at the same instant. Therefore it follows that many of its parts are lodged outside that instant.
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From:
John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
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A reaction:
An obvious would be to say that there are therefore no successive entities, but Wycliff is appealing to our universal acceptance of them, and offering a transcendental argument. Nice move.
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7657
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Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett]
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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.
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From:
Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6)
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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.
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7656
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I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett]
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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.
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From:
Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3)
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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.
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