7 ideas
9123 | Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen] |
Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in. | |
From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3 | |
A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'? |
3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
Full Idea: Ned Block proposes a machine (a 'blockhead') which could pass the Turing Test just by looking up responses in a vast look-up table. | |
From: report of Ned Block (works [1984]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 5.3 | |
A reaction: Once you suspected you were talking to a blockhead, I think you could catch it out in a Turing Test. How can the lookup table keep up to date with immediate experience? Ask it about your new poem. |
7257 | All modern social systems seem to be conspiracies of the rich [More,T] |
Full Idea: When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can't see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: I'm afraid this is my own view of most conservative politics. I don't deny that there is a good case to be made for the conservative view (by Burke and Scruton, for example), but the rich will always latch onto its coat-tails. Cf. Idea 122. |
7254 | If you try to get elected, you should be permanently barred from seeking office [More,T] |
Full Idea: In Utopia, anyone who deliberately tries to get himself elected to a public office is permanently disqualified from holding one. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: This echoes a thought found in Plato (Idea 2149). I've always liked this idea. Why can't we have elections were a group of the best people are invited to stand? Well, yes, it would lead to corruption... Still, the best should be pushed to the front. |
7255 | Only Utopians fail to see glory in warfare [More,T] |
Full Idea: Utopians are practically the only people on earth who fail to see anything glorious in war. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: A refreshing thought for such an early date. Whatever dubious behaviour is nowadays attributed to Thomas More, you have to admire someone who writes this during the reign of Henry VIII. |
7253 | In Utopia, legal euthanasia is considered honourable [More,T] |
Full Idea: In Utopia, officially sanctioned euthanasia is regarded as an honourable death. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: A bit surprising coming from a writer who is now a Catholic martyr and saint. |
7256 | In Utopia, the Supreme Being is identical with Nature [More,T] |
Full Idea: Everyone in Utopia agrees that the Supreme Being (which they call Mythras) is identical with Nature. | |
From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |
A reaction: This sounds remarkably like full-blown Spinozean pantheism, though it should be interpreted with caution. It certainly seems to show that pantheism was a possibility in the minds of late medieval religious thinkers. |