3 ideas
| 4921 | 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. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 6231 | There is a self-determing power in each person, which makes them what they are [Cudworth] |
| Full Idea: This hegemonicon (self-power) always determines the passive capability of men's nature one way or other, either for better or for worse; and has a self-forming and self-framing power by which every man is self-made into what he is. | |
| From: Ralph Cudworth (Treatise of Freewill [1688], §X) | |
| A reaction: The idea that we can somehow create our own selves seems to me the core of existentialism, and the opposite of the Aristotelian belief in a fairly fixed human nature. See Stephen Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' for a revival of the old view. |