5 ideas
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The supposition that a diamond or organism should truly have emergent properties is that they appear at certain complex levels of organisation, but are not explainable (even in principle) in terms of any more fundamental properties of the system. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Panpsychism [1979], p.186) |
| 16473 | Modal Rationalism: conceivability gives a priori access to modal truths [Chalmers, by Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Chalmers' 'modal rationalist' is one who identifies what is possible with what is conceivable; the central claim of the doctrine is that we have a priori access to modal truth. | |
| From: report of David J.Chalmers (Does Conceivability Entail Possibility? [2002]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 5 | |
| A reaction: A helpful clarification, as I can now see how hopelessly and utterly wrong Chalmers is (about almost everything), and I find my confidence in any sort of genuine a priori knowledge (except of conceptual relations) dwindling by the minute. |
| 19258 | Evaluate primary possibility from some world, and secondary possibility from this world [Chalmers, by Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: For Chalmers, that water is XYZ is 'primary possible' (a priori, or conceptually), because it is true in some world considered as actual. It is 'secondary impossible', when it is evaluated from the Earth as actual. | |
| From: report of David J.Chalmers (Does Conceivability Entail Possibility? [2002]) by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence Intro | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is Chalmers' account of how we can know possibility from conceivability, via his two-dimensional semantics (see alphabetical themes). |
| 1556 | By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias] |
| Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature. | |
| From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8 |
| 3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Given what heat is and what water is, it is literally impossible for water to be heated beyond a certain point at normal atmospheric pressure without boiling. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Panpsychism [1979], p.186) |