Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Dthat', 'Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness' and 'Response to David Armstrong'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

18398	Space, time, and some other basics, are not causal powers [Ellis]
	Full Idea: Spatial, temporal, and other primary properties and relationships are not causal powers.
	From: Brian Ellis (Response to David Armstrong [1999], p.42), quoted by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 10.4
	A reaction: It is hard to see how time and space could actually be powers, but future results in physics (or even current results about 'fields') might change that.

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind

2957	Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood]
	Full Idea: Nagel argues (because of brain bisection experiments) that we should jettison our commonsense assumption that the unity of consciousness is an all-or-nothing affair.
	From: report of Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971]) by Michael Lockwood - Mind, Brain and the Quantum p.84
	A reaction: It seems wrong to call it 'commonsense'. It is an assumption that precedes any judgement, but if you rapidly grasp that your mind is in your brain, it becomes common sense that you can cut lumps out of your mind.

16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self

3285	We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel]
	Full Idea: As a result of the evidence of split-brains, it is possible that the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, …but we may be unable to abandon the idea, no matter what we discover.
	From: Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971], p.164)
	A reaction: I'm not sure what grounds you can have for a claim that we can't abandon our current view of selves, even when the new reality will be utterly different. Rather conservative? I would expect future concepts to roughly match future reality.

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference

14080	Are causal descriptions part of the causal theory of reference, or are they just metasemantic? [Kaplan, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Kaplan notes that the causal theory of reference can be understood in two quite different ways, as part of the semantics (involving descriptions of causal processes), or as metasemantics, explaining why a term has the referent it does.
	From: report of David Kaplan (Dthat [1970]) by Jonathan Schaffer - Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson 1
	A reaction: [Kaplan 'Afterthought' 1989] The theory tends to be labelled as 'direct' rather than as 'causal' these days, but causal chains are still at the heart of the story (even if more diffused socially). Nice question. Kaplan takes the meta- version as orthodox.