10 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. |
| 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'. |
| 18239 | What is contemplated must have a higher value than contemplation [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: Kant objects that the world must have a final purpose in order to be worth contemplating, so contemplation cannot be that final purpose. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Arist and' | |
| A reaction: That is a very good objection. If we contemplate the ordered heavens, the ordering of the heavens seems to have a greater value than our contemplation of them. The reply is that the contemplation is the final purpose being contemplated! |
| 18238 | Only a good will can give man's being, and hence the world, a final purpose [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A good will is that whereby alone [man's] being can have an absolute worth and in reference to which the being of the world can have a final purpose. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790], C3 443), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: I wish Kant gave a better account of what a 'good' will consists of. This is an awful burden to bear when you are making decisions. |
| 22053 | The Critique of Judgement aims for a principle that unities humanity and nature [Kant, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Critique of Judgement aims to show how judgement functions 'according to the principle of the appropriateness of nature to our capacity for cognition'. It is meant to provide a principle of the unity of humankind and nature. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: Hence this work is often overlooked as a key part of Kant's 'system'. At first he probably didn't realise he was creating a system. Kant set an agenda for the philosophy of the ensuing thirty years. |
| 18237 | Without men creation would be in vain, and without final purpose [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Without men the whole creation would be mere waste, in vain, and without final purpose. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790], C3 442), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: The standard early twenty-first century response to that is 'get over it'! The remark shows how deep religion runs in Kant, despite his great caution about the existence of God. His notion of 'duty' is similarly religious. |
| 16697 | Time is independent of motion, because God could stop everything for a short or long time [Crathorn, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Suppose God annihilates everything, and then creates something new. The vacant interval could last a shorter or longer time, so there are facts about time independent of facts about motion. | |
| From: report of William Crathorn (Sentences [1335], I.16, concl.2) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2 | |
| A reaction: Not very persuasive if God is in some way 'timeless'. Crathorn would have loved Shoemaker's argument, where motionless time is the best explanation, rather than a possible explanation. |