11 ideas
| 18119 | Mathematics is a mental activity which does not use language [Brouwer, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: Brouwer made the rather extraordinary claim that mathematics is a mental activity which uses no language. | |
| From: report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Mathematics, Science and Language [1928]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.1 | |
| A reaction: Since I take language to have far less of a role in thought than is commonly believed, I don't think this idea is absurd. I would say that we don't use language much when we are talking! |
| 18118 | Brouwer regards the application of mathematics to the world as somehow 'wicked' [Brouwer, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: Brouwer regards as somehow 'wicked' the idea that mathematics can be applied to a non-mental subject matter, the physical world, and that it might develop in response to the needs which that application reveals. | |
| From: report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Mathematics, Science and Language [1928]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.1 | |
| A reaction: The idea is that mathematics only concerns creations of the human mind. It presumably has no more application than, say, noughts-and-crosses. |
| 2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The besetting foible of philosophers is mistaking failures of imagination for insights into necessity. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) |
| 2523 | That every mammal has a mother is a secure reality, but without foundations [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Naturalistic philosophers should look with favour on the finite regress that peters out without foundations or thresholds or essences. That every mammal has a mother does not imply an infinite regress. Mammals have secure reality without foundations. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: I love this thought, which has permeated my thinking quite extensively. Logicians are terrified of regresses, but this may be because they haven't understood the vagueness of language. |
| 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 |
| 2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: You can't have consciousness until you have the concept of consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: If you read enough Dennett this begins to sound vaguely plausible, but next day it sounds like an absurd claim. 'You can't see a tree until you have the concept of a tree?' When do children acquire the concept of consciousness? Are apes non-conscious? |
| 2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I continue to argue for a crucial role of natural language in generating the central features of consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: 'Central features' might beg the question. Dennett does doubt the consciousness of animals (1996). As I stare out of my window, his proposal seems deeply counterintuitive. How could language 'generate' consciousness? Would loss of language create zombies? |
| 2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: It is on the foundation of unconscious intentionality that the higher-order complexities developed that have culminated in what we call consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me. Pace Searle, I have no problem with unconscious intentionality, and the general homuncular picture of low levels building up to complex high levels, which suddenly burst into the song and dance of consciousness. |
| 2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: How could you make a robot conscious? The answer, I think, is to be found in software. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a commitment to strong AI, though Dennett is keen to point out that brains are the only plausible implementation of such software. Most find his claim baffling. |
| 2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Postulating a language of thought is a postponement of the central problems of content ascription, not a necessary first step. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: If the idea of content is built on the idea of representation, then you need some account of what the brain does with its representations. |
| 2529 | Maybe there can be non-conscious concepts (e.g. in bees) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Concepts do not require consciousness. As Jaynes says, the bee has a concept of a flower, but not a conscious concept. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Does the flower have a concept of rain? Rain plays a big functional role in its existence. It depends, alas, on what we mean by a 'concept'. |