44 ideas
| 5953 | For the Cyrenaics experience was not enough to give certainty about reality [Aristippus young, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics, placing all experience within themselves, thought such evidence was insufficient warrant for certainty about reality, and withdrew as in a siege from the world, admitting that objects 'appear', but refusing to pronounce the word 'are'. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1120 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the most extreme position found in ancient thought. It accompanies their extreme hedonism, based on the reality of experience and lack of interest in anything external. A bit daft, really. |
| 9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Maybe a disposition is a more fundamental notion than a cause, in which case Lewis has from the very start erred in seeking a causal analysis, in a traditional, conceptual sense, of disposition terms. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 2.2.8 | |
| A reaction: Is this right about Lewis? I see him as reducing both dispositions and causes to a set of bald facts, which exist in possible and actual worlds. Conditionals and counterfactuals also suffer the same fate. |
| 4938 | Prior to language, concepts are universals created by self-mapping of brain activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Before language is present, concepts depend on the brain's ability to construct 'universals' through higher-order mapping of the activity of the brain's own perceptual and motor maps. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: It should be of great interest to philosophers that one can begin to give a neuro-physiological account of universals. A physical system can be ordered as a database, and universals are the higher branches of a tree-structure of information. |
| 8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual is non-vacuously true iff it takes less of a departure from actuality to make the consequent true along with the antecedent than it does to make the antecedent true without the consequent. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.197) | |
| A reaction: Almost every theory proposed by Lewis hangs on the meaning of the word 'close', as used here. If you visited twenty Earth-like worlds (watch Startrek?), it would be a struggle to decide their closeness to ours in rank order. |
| 4934 | Cultures have a common core of colour naming, based on three axes of colour pairs [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: We seem to have a set of colour axes (red-green, blue-yellow, and light-dark). Color naming in different cultures tend to have universal categories based on these axes, with a few derived or composite categories (e.g. orange, purple, pink, brown, grey). | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This confirms my view of all supposed relativism: that there are degrees of cultural and individual relativism possible, but it is daft to think this goes all the way down, as nature has 'joints', and our minds are part of nature. |
| 4924 | A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: It seems that after a massive stroke or surgical resection, a conscious human being is rapidly "resynthesised" or reunified within the limits of a solipsistic universe that, to outside appearances, is warped and restricted. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: Note that there are two types of 'unity of mind'. This comment refers to the unity of seeing oneself as a single person, rather than the smooth unbroken quality of conscious experience. I presume that there is no point in a mind without the first unity. |
| 4932 | A conscious state endures for about 100 milliseconds, known as the 'specious present' [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: The 'specious present' (William James), a rough estimate of the duration of a single conscious state, is of the order of 100 milliseconds, meaning that conscious states can change very rapidly. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.12) | |
| A reaction: A vital feature of our subjective experience of time. I wonder what the figure is for a fly? It suggests that conscious experience really is like a movie film, composed of tiny independent 'frames' of very short duration. |
| 4931 | Consciousness is a process (of neural interactions), not a location, thing, property, connectivity, or activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is neither a thing, nor a simple property. ..The conscious 'dynamic core' of the brain is a process, not a thing or a place, and is defined in terms of neural interactions, not in terms of neural locations, connectivity or activity. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.12) | |
| A reaction: This must be of great interest to philosophers. Edelman is adamant that it is not any specific neurons. The nice question is: what would it be like to have your brain slowed down? Presumably we would experience steps in the process. Is he a functionalist? |
| 4923 | The three essentials of conscious experience are privateness, unity and informativeness [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental aspects of conscious experience that are common to all its phenomenological manifestations are: privateness, unity, and informativeness. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, coming from neuroscientists. The list strikes me as rather passive. It is no use having good radar if you can't make decisions. Privacy and unity are overrated. Who gets 'informed'? Personal identity must be basic. |
| 4941 | Consciousness can create new axioms, but computers can't do that [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Conscious human thought can create new axioms, which a computer cannot do. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: A nice challenge for the artificial intelligence community! I don't understand their confidence in making this assertion. Nothing in Gödel's Theorem seems to prevent the reassignment of axioms, and Quine implies that it is an easy and trivial game. |
| 4930 | Consciousness arises from high speed interactions between clusters of neurons [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Our hypothesis is that the activity of a group of neurons can contribute directly to conscious experience if it is part of a functional cluster, characterized by strong interactions among a set of neuronal groups over a period of hundreds of milliseconds. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.12) | |
| A reaction: This is their 'dynamic core' hypothesis. It doesn't get at the Hard Questions about consciousness, but this is a Nobel prize winner hot on the trail of the location of the action. It gives support to functionalism, because the neurons vary. |
| 4929 | Dreams and imagery show the brain can generate awareness and meaning without input [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Dreaming and imagery are striking phenomenological demonstrations that the adult brain can spontaneously and intrinsically produce consciousness and meaning without any direct input from the periphery. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This offers some support for Searle's claim that brain's produce 'intrinsic' (rather than 'derived') intentionality. Of course, one can have a Humean impressions/ideas theory about how the raw material got there. We SEE meaning in our experiences. |
| 4940 | Physicists see information as a measure of order, but for biologists it is symbolic exchange between animals [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Physicists may define information as a measure of order in a far-from-equilibrium state, but it is best seen as a biological concept which emerged in evolution with animals that were capable of mutual symbolic exchange. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The physicists' definition seems to open the road to the possibility of non-conscious intentionality (Dennett), where the biological view seems to require consciousness of symbolic meanings (Searle). Tree-rings contain potential information? |
| 4935 | The sensation of red is a point in neural space created by dimensions of neuronal activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: The pure sensation of red is a particular neural state identified by a point within the N-dimensional neural space defined by the integrated activity of all the group of neurons that constitute the dynamic core. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This hardly answers the Hard Question (why experience it? why that experience?), but it is interesting to see a neuroscientist fishing for an account of qualia. He says three types of neuron firing generate the dimensions of the 'space'. |
| 4936 | The self is founded on bodily awareness centred in the brain stem [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Structures in the brain stem map the state of the body and its relation to the environment, on the basis of signals with proprioceptive, kinesthetic, somatosensory and autonomic components. We may call these the dimensions of the proto-self. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that there is no free will, but moral responsibility depends on the existence of a Self, and philosophers had better fight for it (are you listening, Hume?). Fortunately neuroscientists seem to endorse it fairly unanimously. |
| 4939 | A sense of self begins either internally, or externally through language and society [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Two extreme views on the development of the self are 'internalist' and 'externalist'. The first starts with a baby's subjective experience, and increasing differentiation as self-consciousness develops. The externalist view requires language and society. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: Edelman rightly warns against this simple dichotomy, but if I have to vote, it is for internalism. I take a sense of self as basic to any mind, even a slug's. What is a mind for, if not to look after the creature? Self makes sensation into mind. |
| 4925 | Brains can initiate free actions before the person is aware of their own decision [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Libet concluded that the cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously, that is, before there is any recallable awareness that a decision to act has already been initiated cerebrally. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: We should accept this result. 'Free will' was always a bogus metaphysical concept (invented, I think, because God had to be above natural laws). A person is the source of responsibility, and is the controller of the brain, but not entirely conscious. |
| 8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: By determinism I mean that the prevailing laws of nature are such that there do not exist any two possible worlds which are exactly alike up to that time, which differ thereafter, and in which those laws are never violated. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.196) | |
| A reaction: This would mean that the only way an action of free will could creep in would be if it accepted being a 'violation' of the laws of nature. Fans of free will would probably prefer to call it a 'natural' phenomenon. I'm with Lewis. |
| 4933 | Consciousness is a process, not a thing, as it maintains unity as its composition changes [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: The conscious 'dynamic core' of the brain can maintain its unity over time even if its composition may be constantly changing, which is the signature of a process as opposed to a thing. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.12) | |
| A reaction: This is the functionalists' claim that the mind is 'multiply realisable', since different neurons can maintain the same process. 'Process' strikes me as a much better word than 'function'. These theories capture passive mental life better than active. |
| 4928 | Brain complexity balances segregation and integration, like a good team of specialists [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: A theoretical analysis of complexity suggests that neuronal complexity strikes an optimum balance between segregation and integration, which fits the view of the brain as a collection of specialists who talk to each other a lot. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This is a theoretical point, but comes from a leading neuroscientist, and seems to endorse Fodor's modularity proposal. For a philosopher, one of the issues here is how to reconcile the segregation with the Cartesian unity and personal identity of a mind. |
| 4927 | Information-processing views of the brain assume the existence of 'information', and dubious brain codes [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: So-called information-processing views of the brain have been criticized because they typically assume the existence in the world of previously defined information, and often assume the existence of precise neural codes for which there is no evidence. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is the target here. Searle is keen that 'intrinsic intentionality' is required to see something as 'information'. It is hard to see how anything acquires significance as it flows through a mechanical process. |
| 4922 | Consciousness involves interaction with persons and the world, as well as brain functions [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: We emphatically do not identify consciousness in its full range as arising solely in the brain, since we believe that higher brain functions require interactions both with the world and with other persons. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Would you gradually lose higher brain functions if you lived entirely alone? Intriguingly, this sounds like a neuroscientist asserting the necessity for broad content in order to understand the brain. |
| 5793 | Concepts and generalisations result from brain 'global mapping' by 'reentry' [Edelman/Tononi, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: When you get maps all over the brain signalling to each other by reentry you have what Edelman calls 'global mapping', and this allows the system not only to have perceptual categories and generalisation, but also to coordinate perception and action. | |
| From: report of G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000]) by John Searle - The Mystery of Consciousness Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the nearest we have got to a proper scientific account of thought (as opposed to untested speculation about Turing machines). Something like this account must be right. A concept is a sustained process, not a static item. |
| 4926 | Concepts arise when the brain maps its own activities [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: We propose that concepts arise from the mapping by the brain itself of the activity of the brain's own areas and regions. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Yes. One should add that the brain appears to be physically constructed with the logic of a filing system, which would mean that our concepts were labels for files within the system. Nature generates some of the files, and thinking creates the others. |
| 8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I identify a proposition with the set of possible worlds where it is true. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.193) | |
| A reaction: As it stands, I'm baffled by this. How can 'it is raining' be a set of possible worlds? I assume it expands to refer to the truth-conditions, among possibilities as well as actualities. 'It is raining' fits all worlds where it is raining. |
| 3023 | Even the foolish may have some virtues [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics say that some of the virtues may exist even in the foolish. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.8 |
| 3026 | Actions are influenced by circumstances, so Cyrenaics say felons should be reformed, not hated [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Cyrenaics say errors should be pardoned, because men do not err intentionally but are influenced by circumstances; one should not hate a person, but only teach him better. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.9 | |
| A reaction: A very appealing suggestion, and rather wonderful for its time. There is still implied agreement about what is 'error', and what counts as 'better'. |
| 3024 | Cyrenaics teach that honour, justice and shame are all based on custom and fashion [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics taught that there was nothing naturally and intrinsically just, or honourable, or disgraceful; but that things were considered so because of law and fashion. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.8 | |
| A reaction: As we would say now, values and virtues are 'cultural constructs'. This obviously contains a lot of truth, but I don't think our opposition of genocide is just 'fashion'. |
| 4937 | Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
| Full Idea: Early and central in the development of the brain are the dimensions provided by value systems indicating salience for the entire organism. | |
| From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't quite meet Hume's challenge to find values in the whole of nature, but it matches Charles Taylor's claim that for humans values are knowable a priori. Conditional values can be facts of the whole of nature. "If there is life, x has value..". |
| 3025 | For a Cyrenaic no one is of equal importance to himself [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: A Cyrenaic will not consider anyone else of equal importance with himself. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.9 |
| 3019 | No one pleasure is different from or more pleasant than another [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: No one pleasure is different from or more pleasant than another. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.8 |
| 3021 | The Cyrenaics asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.8 |
| 3027 | Cyrenaics say wise men are self-sufficient, needing no friends [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Cyrenaics say wise men are sufficient to themselves, and so have no need of friends. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.13 |
| 8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Lewis thinks it is a major defect in a theory of causation that it builds in the condition that the time of the cause precede that of the effect: that cause precedes effect is something we ought to explain (which his counterfactual theory claims to do). | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Hartry Field - Causation in a Physical World | |
| A reaction: My immediate reaction is that the chances of explaining such a thing are probably nil, and that we might as well just accept the direction of causation as a given. Even philosophers balk at the question 'why doesn't time go backwards?' |
| 8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One might stipulate that a cause must always precede its effect, but I reject this solution. It won't solve the problem of epiphenomena, it rejects a priori any backwards causation, and it trivializes defining time-direction through causation. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.203) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Not strong arguments, I would say. Maybe apparent causes are never epiphenomenal. Maybe backwards causation is impossible. Maybe we must use time to define causal direction, and not vice versa. |
| 8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: In present-day regularity analyses, a cause is defined (roughly) as any member of any minimal set of actual conditions that are jointly sufficient, given the laws, for the existence of the effect. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.193) | |
| A reaction: This is the view Lewis is about to reject. It seem to summarise the essence of the Mackie INUS theory. This account would make the presence of oxygen a cause of almost every human event. |
| 10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: We sometimes single out one among all the causes of some event and call it 'the' cause. ..We may select the abnormal causes, or those under human control, or those we deem good or bad, or those we want to talk about. This is invidious discrimination. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973]) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard view expressed by Mill - presumably the obvious empiricist line. But if we specify 'the pre-conditions' for an event, we can't just mention ANY fact prior to the effect - there is obvious relevance. So why not for 'the' cause as well? |
| 8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: In the regularity analysis of causes, instead of c causing e, c might turn out to be an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or an inefficacious effect of a genuine cause, or a pre-empted cause (by some other cause) of e. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.194) | |
| A reaction: These are Lewis's reasons for rejecting the general regularity account, in favour of his own particular counterfactual account. It is unlikely that c would be regularly pre-empted or epiphenomenal. If we build time's direction in, it won't be an effect. |
| 17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's basic account has a basic causal relation, counterfactual dependence, and the general causal relation is the ancestral of this basic one. ...This is motivated by counterfactual dependence failing to be general because of the pre-emption problem. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Causation and the Manifestation of Powers p.161 | |
| A reaction: It is so nice when you struggle for ages with a topic, and then some clever person summarises it clearly for you. |
| 17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
| Full Idea: The Humean idea, developed by Lewis, is that rather than being sufficient for their effects, causes are (counterfactual) necessary for their effects. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Causation and the Manifestation of Powers p.162 |
| 8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Some counterfactuals are based on non-causal laws, such as Newton's Third Law of Motion. 'If no force one way, then no force the other'. Lewis's counterfactual analysis implies that one force causes the other, which is not the case. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience 5.2 | |
| A reaction: So what exactly does 'cause' my punt to move forwards? Basing causal laws on counterfactual claims looks to me like putting the cart before the horse. |
| 8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: My (counterfactual) analysis is meant to apply to causation in particular cases; it is not an analysis of causal generalizations. Those presumably quantify over particulars, but it is hard to match natural language to the quantifiers. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.195) | |
| A reaction: What authority could you have for asserting a counterfactual claim, if you only had one observation? Isn't the counterfactual claim the hallmark of a generalisation? For one case, 'if not-c, then not-e' is just a speculation. |
| 8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One event is the cause of another iff there exists a causal chain leading from the first to the second. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.200) | |
| A reaction: It will be necessary to both explain and identify a 'chain'. Some chains are extremely tenuous (Alexander could stop a barrel of beer). Go back a hundred years, and the cause of any present event is everything back then. |
| 4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis can elucidate the logic of counterfactuals on the assumption that you are not at all puzzled about what a law of nature is. But if you are puzzled about this, it cannot contribute anything towards resolving your puzzlement. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by L. Jonathan Cohen - The Problem of Natural Laws p.219 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a penetrating remark. The counterfactual theory is wrong, partly because it is epistemological instead of ontological, and partly because it refuses to face the really difficult problem, of what is going on out there. |