9 ideas
| 3016 | Even the gods cannot strive against necessity [Pittacus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Even the gods cannot strive against necessity. | |
| From: report of Pittacus (reports [c.610 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.5.4 |
| 23513 | Single neurons can carry out complex functions [Seth] |
| Full Idea: It is increasingly apparent that even single neurons are capable of carrying out highly complex functions all by themselves. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.1 n) | |
| A reaction: Bang goes the simple connectionist account of consciousness. |
| 23514 | The cerbellum has a huge number of neurons, but little involvement in consciousness [Seth] |
| Full Idea: The cerebellum [at the back] has about four times as many neurons as the rest of the brain put together, but seems barely involved in consciousness. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.2) | |
| A reaction: I wonder if it also has four times as many connections? |
| 23516 | Maybe a system is conscious if the whole generates more information than its parts [Seth] |
| Full Idea: The main claim of Tononi's 'integrated information theory' is that a system is conscious to the extent that its whole generates more information than its parts. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.3) | |
| A reaction: Seth seems to present this as an 'interesting' proposal. I find it unlikely that consciousness could be explain in terms of information, or that a machine constructed on this principle would thus become conscious. (Databases pass this test). |
| 23519 | The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The elements of a self are 1) embodied - related directly to the body, 2) perspectival - having a viewpoint, 3) volitional - being an agent, 4) narrative - aware of past and future, and 5) social - as others perceive me. | |
| From: report of Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.8) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [summarised] Seth says there are distinctive emotions associated with each of these aspects of the self. This list is very helpful, as a discouragement for anyone who wants to pick one of these as the sole true nature of the self. |
| 23518 | Modern AI is mostly machine-based pattern recognition [Seth] |
| Full Idea: Much of today's AI is best described as sophisticated machine-based pattern recognition. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], IV.13) | |
| A reaction: Personally I wouldn't want to underestimate the extent to which human intelligence is also pattern recognition (across time as well as in space). |
| 23517 | Volition is felt as doing what you want, with possible alternatives, and a source from within [Seth] |
| Full Idea: The experience of volition is defined by 1) the feeling that I am doing what I want to do, 2) that I could have done otherwise, and 3) that voluntary actions seem to come from within. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.11) | |
| A reaction: Note that these can all be cited without reference to their feeling 'free'. |
| 23515 | Human exceptionalism plagues biology, and most other human thinking [Seth] |
| Full Idea: Human exceptionalism has repeatedly plagued biology, and has darkened the history of human thought everywhere. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], I.2) | |
| A reaction: I increasingly agree with this, as much in philosophy as in biology. We really need to get used to our place in evolution. |
| 7417 | God can't have silly perfections, but how do we decide which ones are 'silly'? [Joslin] |
| Full Idea: It is clear that God cannot have all conceivable perfections, because otherwise he would have absurd perfections (like being the perfect prawn sandwich), so a line must be drawn, and how are we to decide which perfections are appropriate and essential? | |
| From: Jack Joslin (talk [2006]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This is an excellent question for curbing the absurdities of those who want to load God with every good thing that can possibly be conceived. Is the God who is also a perfect prawn sandwich more perfect than the one who isn't? |