13 ideas
| 1507 | We don't have time for infinite quantity, but we do for infinite divisibility, because time is also divisible [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Although it is impossible to make contact in a finite time with things that are infinite in quantity, it is possible to do so with things that are infinitely divisible, since the time itself is also infinite in this way. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A25) by Aristotle - Physics 233a21 |
| 5109 | The fast runner must always reach the point from which the slower runner started [Zeno of Elea, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Zeno's so-called 'Achilles' claims that the slowest runner will never be caught by the fastest runner, because the one behind has first to reach the point from which the one in front started, and so the slower one is bound always to be in front. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 239b14 | |
| A reaction: The point is that the slower runner will always have moved on when the faster runner catches up with the starting point. We must understand how humble the early Greeks felt when they confronted arguments like this. It was like a divine revelation. |
| 1512 | Zeno is wrong that one grain of millet makes a sound; why should one grain achieve what the whole bushel does? [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Zeno is wrong in arguing that the tiniest fragment of millet makes a sound; there is no reason why the fragment should be able to move in any amount of time the air which the whole bushel moved as it fell. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A29) by Aristotle - Physics 250a16 |
| 1508 | Zeno's arrow paradox depends on the assumption that time is composed of nows [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Zeno's third argument claims that a moving arrow is still. Here the conclusion depends on assuming that time is composed of nows; if this assumption is not granted, the argument fails. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A27?) by Aristotle - Physics 239b5 |
| 10180 | Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects [Poincaré] |
| Full Idea: Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects; it is a matter of indifference if the objects are replaced by others, provided the relations do not change. They are interested in form alone, not matter. | |
| From: Henri Poincaré (Science and Hypothesis [1902], p.20), quoted by E Reck / M Price - Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths §6 | |
| A reaction: This connects modern structuralism with Aritotle's interest in the 'form' of things. Contrary to the views of the likes of Frege, it is hard to see that the number '7' has any properties at all, apart from its relations. A daffodil would do just as well. |
| 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'. |
| 454 | If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them [Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: It things are many, they can't be more or less than they are, so they must be finite, but also there must be endless things between each thing, so they must be infinite. | |
| From: Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B3), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 140.29 |
| 455 | That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not [Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not. | |
| From: Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 1511 | If everything is in a place, what is the place in? Place doesn't exist [Zeno of Elea, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: If there is a place it will be in something, because everything that exists is in something. But what is in something is in a place. Therefore the place will be in a place, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, there is no such thing as place. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B3) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.562.3 |