Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Structure and Content of Truth' and 'Could a computer ever understand?'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The real objection to correspondence theories is that such theories fail to provide entities to which truth vehicles (as statements, sentence, or utterances) can be said to correspond.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Structure and Content of Truth [1990], p.304), quoted by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography Notes 23
     A reaction: This is the remark which provoked Sommers to come out with Idea 18901, which strikes me as rather profound.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
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
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Quantum states in microtubules could bind brain activity to produce consciousness [Penrose]
     Full Idea: I propose that microtubules in nerve cells could give rise to a stable quantum state that would bind the activity of brain cells throughout the cerebrum and in doing so give rise to consciousness.
     From: Roger Penrose (Could a computer ever understand? [1998], p.329)
     A reaction: This seems to offer a physical theory to account for the 'unity' of the mind (which so impressed Descartes), but I don't quite see why being aware of things would ensue from some 'quantum binding'. I daresay 'quantum binding' occurs in the Sun.