9 ideas
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. |
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. |
14802 | Physical and psychical laws of mind are either independent, or derived in one or other direction [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The question about minds is whether 1) physical and psychical laws are independent (monism, my neutralism), 2) the psychical laws derived and physical laws primordial (materialism), 3) physical law is derived, psychical law primordial (idealism). | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.321) | |
A reaction: I think you are already in trouble when you start proposing that there are two quite distinct sets of laws, and then worry about how they are related. Assume unity, and only separate them when the science forces you to (which it won't). |
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. |
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'. |
3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
Full Idea: Ned Block proposes a machine (a 'blockhead') which could pass the Turing Test just by looking up responses in a vast look-up table. | |
From: report of Ned Block (works [1984]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 5.3 | |
A reaction: Once you suspected you were talking to a blockhead, I think you could catch it out in a Turing Test. How can the lookup table keep up to date with immediate experience? Ask it about your new poem. |
14800 | The world is full of variety, but laws seem to produce uniformity [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Exact law obviously never can produce heterogeneity out of homogeneity; and arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the universe the most manifest and characteristic. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.319) | |
A reaction: This is the view of laws of nature now associated with Nancy Cartwright, but presumably you can explain the apparent chaos in terms of the intersection of vast numbers of 'laws'. Or, better, there aren't any laws. |
14801 | Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.320) | |
A reaction: The 'destruction of bad results' is a much better slogan for Darwin that Spencer's 'survival of the fittest'. It is, of course, a rather unattractive God who makes progress by endlessly destroying huge quantities of failed (but living) experiments. |