47 ideas
| 7823 | Lucretius was rediscovered in 1417 [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura' was rediscovered in 1417, after languishing forgotten for six centuries. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: A wonder. Is it the greatest book of the ancient world - because it partially preserves the lost philosophy of great Democritus? |
| 458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4 |
| 5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles claims that things are alternately changing and at rest - that they are changing whenever love is creating a unity out of plurality, or hatred is creating plurality out of unity, and they are at rest in the times in between. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 250b26 | |
| A reaction: I suppose one must say that this an example of Ruskin's 'pathetic fallacy' - reading human emotions into the cosmos. Being constructive little creatures, we think goodness leads to construction. I'm afraid Empedocles is just wrong. |
| 4913 | Brain lesions can erase whole categories of perception, suggesting they are hard-wired [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The discovery that a single brain lesion can erase all knowledge of man-made artefacts, or all knowledge of animals, suggests that these categories somehow hard-wired into the brain - that we all have a set of 'memory pigeonholes'. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.190) | |
| A reaction: Presumably something can become 'hard-wired' through experience, rather than from birth. The whole idea of 'hard-wired' seems misleading about the brain. What matters is that the brain physically constructs categories. |
| 13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says there is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314b08 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle comments that this prevents Empedocleans from distinguishing between superficial alteration and fundamental change of identity. Presumably, though, that wouldn't bother them. |
| 457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: There is no creation of substance in any one of mortal existence, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1111f | |
| A reaction: also Aristotle 314b08 |
| 4910 | Sense organs don't discriminate; they reduce various inputs to the same electrical pulses [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Despite their variety, each sense organ translates its stimulus into electrical pulses; rather than discriminating one type of input from another, the sense organs actually make them more alike. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.174) | |
| A reaction: An illuminating observation, which modern 'naïve realists' should bear in mind. Secondary qualities are entirely unrelated to the nature of the input, and are merely 'what the brain decides to make of it'. Discrimination is in our neurons. |
| 4911 | The recognition sequence is: classify, name, locate, associate, feel [Carter,R, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The sequence of events in the brain for perceptual recognition is first identifying a rough class for the object, then a name, then a location, then some associations, and finally an emotion. | |
| From: report of Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.181) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be one of those places where neuro-science trumps philosophy. You can't argue with empirical research, so philosophical theories had better adapt themselves to this sequence. The big modern discovery is the place of emotion in recognition. |
| 4919 | There seems to be no dividing line between a memory and a thought [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: It has become clear from research that there is no clear dividing line between a memory and a thought. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.308) | |
| A reaction: This always struck me as an obvious criticism of Descartes, when he claimed that memory was not an essential part of the 'thinking thing'. How can you think or understand without memory of the different phases of your thoughts? No memory, no mind! |
| 462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: One vision is produced by both eyes | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B088), quoted by Strabo - works 8.364.3 |
| 4908 | No one knows if animals are conscious [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: No one knows if animals are conscious. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.155) | |
| A reaction: This is a report from the front line of brain research, and should be born in mind when over-confident people make pronouncements about this topic. It strikes me as important to grasp that animals MIGHT not be conscious. |
| 4902 | Pain doesn't have one brain location, but is linked to attention and emotion [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Scans show there is no such thing as a pain centre; pain springs mainly from the activation of areas associated with attention and emotion. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 12) | |
| A reaction: Most brain research points to the complex multi-layered nature of experiences that were traditionally considered simple. We can be distracted from a pain, and an enormous number of factors can affect our degree of dislike of a given pain. |
| 4904 | Proper brains appear at seven weeks, and neonates have as many neurons as adults do [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The main sections of the brain, including the cerebral cortex, are visible within seven weeks of conception, and by the time the child is born the brain contains as many neurons - about 100 billion - as it will have as an adult. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: Of interest in the abortion debate, and also in thinking about personal identity. However, it seems clear that the number of connections, rather than neurons, is what really matters. A small infant may well lack personal identity. |
| 4915 | In primates, brain size correlates closely with size of social group [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Brain size in primates is closely associated with the size of the social group in which the animal lives. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.257) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Humans can have huge social groups because of language, which suggests a chicken-or-egg question. Language, intelligence and size of social group must have expanded together in humans. |
| 4917 | Consciousness involves awareness, perception, self-awareness, attention and reflection [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Awareness, perception, self-awareness, attention and reflection are all separate components of consciousness, and the quality of our experience varies according to which and how many of them are present. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.300) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers like to emphasise 'qualia' and 'intentionality'. This remark slices the cake differently. 'Attention' is interesting, dividing consciousness into two areas, with some experience fading away into the darkness. Hume denied self-awareness. |
| 4916 | There is enormous evidence that consciousness arises in the frontal lobes of the brain [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: A huge volume of evidence suggests that consciousness emerges from the activity of the cerebral cortex, and in particular from the frontal lobes. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.298) | |
| A reaction: Dualists must face up to this, and even many physicalists have a rather vague notion about the location of awareness, but we are clearly homing in very precise physical substances which have consciousness as a feature. |
| 4905 | Normal babies seem to have overlapping sense experiences [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Connections in a baby's brain probably give the infant the experience of 'seeing' sounds and 'hearing' colours - which occasionally continues into adulthood, where it is known as 'synaesthesia'. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 19) | |
| A reaction: A fact to remember when discussing secondary qualities, and the relativism involved in the way we perceive the world. If you have done your philosophy right, you shouldn't be surprised by this discovery. |
| 4918 | In blindsight V1 (normal vision) is inactive, but V5 (movement) lights up [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Scans show that a sub-section of the visual cortex called V5 - the area that registers movement - lights up during blindsight, even though V1 - the primary sensory area that is essential for normal sight - is not active. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.307) | |
| A reaction: The whole point of blindsight is to make us realise that vision involves not one module, but a whole team of them. The inference is that V1 involves consciousness, but other areas of the visual cortex don't. |
| 22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom and power of thought, know thou, are shared in by all things. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) II.286 | |
| A reaction: Sextus quotes this, saying that it is 'still more paradoxical', and that it explicitly includes plants. This may mean that Empedocles was not including inanimate matter. |
| 4912 | Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.187) | |
| A reaction: This is only a speculation, but it is an effect which can be caused by brain injury, and dualists should face the possibility that this evidence (prized by many dualists) can have a physical explanation. |
| 4903 | Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The pattern of brain activation during, say, a word retrieval task is usually similar enough among the dozen or so participants who typically take part in such studies for their scans to be overlaid and still show a clear pattern. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't surprise me, though it could be interpreted as supporting type-type identity, or as supporting functionalism. Armstrong and Lewis endorse a sort of reductive functionalism which would fit this observation. |
| 4920 | Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: The nuts and bolts of thinking - holding ideas in mind and manipulating them - takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.312) | |
| A reaction: Keep this firmly in view! Imagine that the skull is transparent, and brain activity moves in waves of colour. Dualism would, in those circumstances, never have even occurred to anyone. |
| 1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles assumes that thinking is either identical to or very similar to sense-perception. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], A86) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 9 | |
| A reaction: Not to be sniffed at. We can, of course, control our thinking (though we can't control the controller) and we contemplate abstractions, but that might be seen as a sort of perception. Vision is not as visual as we think. |
| 4906 | Babies show highly emotional brain events, but may well be unaware of them [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Babies show emotion dramatically, but the areas of the brain that in adults are linked to the conscious experience of emotions are not active in newborn babies. Such emotions may therefore be unconscious. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 19) | |
| A reaction: Traditionally, 'unconscious emotion' is a contradiction, but I think we should accept this new evidence and rethink the nature of mind. Not only might emotion be non-conscious, but we should even consider that rational thinking could be too. |
| 4909 | The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: We try to manipulate our emotions all the time, but all we are doing is arranging the outside world so it triggers certain emotions - we cannot control our reactions directly. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.155) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to throw a very illuminating light on a huge amount of human behaviour, such as going to the cinema or listening to music. The romantic movement encouraged direct internal manipulation. Compare sex fantasies with viewing pornography. |
| 4914 | A frog will starve to death surrounded by dead flies [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: A frog will starve to death surrounded by dead flies. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.195) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning against assuming that rationality is operating when a frog feels hungry and 'decides' to have lunch. We should take comfort from the fact that humans are NOT this stupid, and philosophers should try to accurately describe our gift. |
| 552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles was the first to give evil and good as principles. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 985a | |
| A reaction: Once you start to think that good and evil will only matter if they have causal powers, it is an easy step to the idea of a benevolent god, and a satanic anti-god. Otherwise the 'principles' could be ignored. |
| 4907 | The 'locus coeruleus' is one of several candidates for the brain's 'pleasure centre' [Carter,R] |
| Full Idea: Noradrenaline is an excitatory chemical that induces physical and mental arousal and heightens mood. Production is centred in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus, which is one of several candidates for the brain's 'pleasure' centre. | |
| From: Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p. 30) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me very morally desirable that people understand facts of this kind, so that they can be more objective about pleasure. Pleasure is one cog in the machine that makes a person, not the essence of human life. |
| 7809 | In an honour code shame is the supreme punishment, and revenge is a duty [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: An honour code is one in which the greatest punishment is shame, and in which revenge is a duty. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Is this really what Nietzsche wanted to revive? Shame isn't a private matter - it needs solidarity of values in the community, and contempt for dishonour, so that it becomes everyone's worst fear. |
| 7824 | If suicide is lawful, but assisting suicide is unlawful, powerless people are denied their rights [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: An anomaly created by England's 1961 Suicide Act is that it is lawful to take one's own life, but unlawful to help anyone else to do it. This means anyone unable to commit suicide without help is denied one of their fundamental rights. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: There is a difference, not really captured either by law or by reason, between tolerating an activity, and encouraging and helping it. I think the test question is "this activity is legal, but would you want your child to do it?" |
| 589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Nature is but a word of human framing. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1015a |
| 21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: In Empedocles we have a dividing principle, 'Strife', set against 'Friendship' - which is the One and is to him bodiless, while the elements represent matter. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.09 | |
| A reaction: The first time I've seen the principle of Love in Empedocles identified with the One of Parmenides. Plotinus is a trustworthy reporter, I think, because he was well read, and had access to lost texts. |
| 2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles holds that the corporeal elements are four, but that all the elements, including those which create motion, are six in number. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a16 |
| 6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles used numerical ratios to explain different kinds of matter; for example, bone is two parts water, four parts fire, two parts earth; and blood is an equal blend of all four elements. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Brad Inwood - Empedocles | |
| A reaction: Why isn't the ration 1:2:1? This presumably shows the influence of Pythagoras (who had also been based in Italy, like Empedocles), as well as that of the earlier naturalistic philosophers. It was a very good theory, though wrong. |
| 13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says that Fire, Water, Air and Earth are four elements, and are thus 'simple' rather than flesh, bone and bodies which, like these, are 'homoeomeries'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a26 | |
| A reaction: The translation is not quite clear. I take it that flesh and bone may look simple, because they are homoeomerous, but they are not really - but what is his evidence for that? Compare Idea 13208. |
| 459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: These elements never cease their continuous exchange, sometimes uniting under the influence of Love, so that all become One, at other times again moving apart through the hostile force of Hate. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says it is evident that all the other bodies down to the 'elements' have their coming-to-be and their passing-away: but it is not clear how the 'elements' themselves, severally in their aggregated masses, come-to-be and pass-away. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325b20 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the elements are like axioms - and are just given. How do electrons and quarks come-to-be? |
| 13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is not an adequate explanation to say that 'Love and Strife set things moving', unless the very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of that kind. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 333b23 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be of interest for showing Aristotle's quest for explanations, and his unwillingness to be fobbed off with anything superficial. I take a task of philosophy to be to push explanations further than others wish to go. |
| 460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Besides these elements, nothing else comes into being, nor does anything cease. For if they had been perishing continuously, they would Be no more; and what could increase the Whole? And whence could it have come? | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it just an accident that teeth and other parts of the body seem to have some purpose, and creatures survive because they happen to be put together in a useful way? Everything else has been destroyed, as Empedocles says of his 'cow with human head'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], 61) by Aristotle - Physics 198b29 | |
| A reaction: Good grief! Has no one ever noticed that Empedocles proposed the theory of evolution? It isn't quite natural selection, because we aren't told what does the 'destroying', but it is a little flash of genius that was quietly forgotten. |
| 466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is mind, holy and ineffable, and only mind, which darts through the whole cosmos with its swift thought. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B134), quoted by Ammonius - On 'De Interpretatione' 4.5.249.6 |
| 461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is equal in all directions to himself and altogether eternal, a rounded Sphere enjoying a circular solitude. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B028), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.15.2 |
| 1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is a consequence of Empedocles' view that God is the most unintelligent thing, for he alone is ignorant of one of the elements, namely strife, whereas mortal creatures are familiar with them all. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 410b08 |
| 1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wretched is he who cares not for clear thinking about the gods. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B132), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.140.5.1 |
| 7819 | Religion gives answers, comforts, creates social order, and panders to superstition [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The four standard explanations given for religion are that it provides answer, that it gives comfort, that it makes for social order, and that it rests on mere superstition. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: All four of these could be correct, though the first and fourth would be incompatible if religion gives correct answers. Why religion begins might be not the same as the reason why it continues. |
| 7817 | To make an afterlife appealing, this life has to be denigrated [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: It is remarkable how much the life of this world has to be denigrated to make the promise of happiness after death appealing. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be true of most religions, but it could be otherwise. Surely you want such a wonderful life to continue after death? But then you would not be obliged to do anything difficult to achieve immortality. Power comes into it... |
| 7818 | In Greek mythology only heroes can go to heaven [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: In Greek mythology only a hero like Hercules could hope to go to heaven (by becoming a god himself). | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This illustrates Nietsche's 'inversion of morality' most clearly, because Christianity says that the person most likely to go to heaven is the humblest person. |