Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Intrinsic Quality of Experience', 'The Sign of Four' and 'works'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


4 ideas

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin]
     Full Idea: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
     From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 4.1
     A reaction: [Popular Lectures 1 p.73] Clearly the writer is a physicist! Astronomers discover objects, geologists discover structures, biologists reveal mechanisms.
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
     Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
     From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
Qualities of experience are just representational aspects of experience ('Representationalism') [Harman, by Burge]
     Full Idea: Harman defended what came to be known as 'representationalism' - the view that qualitative aspects of experience are nothing other than representational aspects.
     From: report of Gilbert Harman (The Intrinsic Quality of Experience [1990]) by Tyler Burge - Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 p.459
     A reaction: Functionalists like Harman have a fairly intractable problem with the qualities of experience, and this may be clutching at straws. What does 'represent' mean? How is the representation achieved? Why that particular quale?
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / a. Energy
Energy has progressed from a mere formula, to a principle pervading all nature [Kelvin]
     Full Idea: The name 'energy', first used by Thomas Young, has come into use after it was raised from a mere formula of mathematical dynamics to become a principle pervading all nature, and guiding every field of science.
     From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 01 'Principle'
     A reaction: [bit compressed] As far as I can see energy behaves exactly as if it were a substance, like water conserved in rainfalls, and yet it isn't a stuff, and seems to result from a process of abstraction. I take it to be one of the biggest mysteries in physics.