16 ideas
| 20657 | There are 23 core brain functions, with known circuit, transmitters, genes and behaviour [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In 2014 the National Institutes of Mental Health published a list of 23 core brain functions and their associated neural circuitry, neurotransmitters and genes, and the behaviour and emotions that go with them. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Physics') | |
| A reaction: They were interested in the functions behind mental health, but I am interested in the functions behind our belief systems, which might produce a different focus. Sub-functions, perhaps. |
| 1394 | Can the mental elements of a 'bundle' exist on their own? [Carruthers] |
| Full Idea: If the mind is merely a bundle of states and events, it must be logically possible for the various elements of the bundle to exist on their own. | |
| From: Peter Carruthers (Introducing Persons [1986], 2.iii (A)) | |
| A reaction: Depends how literally you take the bundle metaphor, and how much you are worried about 'logical' possibility (which only seems to mean imaginable). The answers to these questions do not have to be all-or-nothing. |
| 1395 | Why would a thought be a member of one bundle rather than another? [Carruthers] |
| Full Idea: What makes it true that a particular thought or experience is a member of one bundle rather than another? | |
| From: Peter Carruthers (Introducing Persons [1986], 2.iii (B)) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if you can answer this nice question without mentioning values. The mental events in are in my bundle because they matter to me (because they are related to my body, for which I am responsible). Compare picking my possessions out of a pile. |
| 1396 | We identify persons before identifying conscious states [Carruthers] |
| Full Idea: We can have no conception of the particularity of conscious states prior to, and independently of, a conception of a particularity of persons. | |
| From: Peter Carruthers (Introducing Persons [1986], 2.iii (C)) | |
| A reaction: agrees with Butler |
| 20656 | Traditional ideas of the mind were weakened in the 1950s by mind-influencing drugs [Watson] |
| Full Idea: One development in particular in the 1950s helped to discredit the traditional concept of the mind. This was medical drugs that influenced the workings of the brain. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: This explains Ryle's 1949 book, and the Australian physicalists emerging in the late 1950s. Philosophers don't grasp how their subject is responsive to other areas of human knowledge. Of course, opium had always done this. |
| 20655 | Humans have been hunter-gatherers for 99.5% of their existence [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anthropology shows that the hunter-gathering lifestyle has occupied 99.5 per cent of the time humans have been on earth. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 13 'Emergence') | |
| A reaction: If you are trying to understand humanity, you ignore this fact at your peril. Even agriculture is only a tiny part of our history, and that only disappeared as a major human activity (in many nations) in the last hundred years. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20650 | The Uncertainty Principle implies that cause and effect can't be measured [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Uncertainty Principle implied that in the subatomic world cause and effect could never be measured. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 05 'Against') | |
| A reaction: The fact that it can't be measured does not, presumably, entail that it doesn't exist. Physicists seem to ignore causation, rather than denying it. Can causation be real if it only exists at the macro-level, as an emergent phenomenon? |
| 20649 | The interference of light through two slits confirmed that it is waves [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Thomas Young in 1803 confirmed the idea of Huyghens that light is waves, showing how light passing through two slits produces an interference pattern that resembles water waves sluicing through two slits. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 04 'Conception') | |
| A reaction: The great puzzle emerges when it also turns out to be quantised particles. |
| 20661 | Electrons rotate in hyrogen atoms 10^13 times per second [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In the hydrogen atom the electron rotates some 10,000 billion times per second. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 18 'Evolutionary') | |
| A reaction: That's an awful lot. Is it at the speed of light? |
| 20647 | Quantum theory explains why nature is made up of units, such as elements [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Planck's quantum idea explained so much, including the observation that the chemical world is made up of discrete units - the elements. Discrete elements implied fundamental units of matter that were themselves discrete (as Dalton had said). | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 4 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: The atomic theory was only finally confirmed by Einstein in 1905. This idea implies that the very lowest level of all must have distinct building blocks, but so far we have got down to 'fields', which seem to be a sort of 'foam'. |
| 20654 | Only four particles are needed for matter: up and down quark, electron, electron-neutrino [Watson] |
| Full Idea: We need twelve particles in the master equation of the standard model, but it is necessary to have only four to build a universe (up and down quarks, the electron and the electron neutrino (or lepton). The existence of the others is 'a bit of a mystery'. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 11 'First Three') |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
| 20651 | The shape of molecules is important, as well as the atoms and their bonds [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Pauling showed that the architecture - the shape of molecules was relevant (as well as the bonds). This meant that molecules were just as important as atoms in the understanding of matter. Molecules were not just the sum of their parts. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 05 'Three') | |
| A reaction: If Aristotle struggled to understand matter, then so should modern philosophers. This involves thermodynamics and chemistry, as well as quantum theory. |
| 20652 | In 1828 the animal substance urea was manufactured from inorganic ingredients [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In 1828 Wöhler, in an iconic experiment, had manufactured an organic substance, urea, hitherto the product solely of animals, out of inorganic materials, and without any interventions of vital force. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 06 'Inorganic') | |
| A reaction: For reductionists like me, the gradual explanation of life in inorganic terms is the great role model of explanation. I take it for granted that the human mind will go the same way, despite partisan resistance from a lot of philosophers. |
| 20658 | Information is physical, and living can be seen as replicating and preserving information [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In passing information, physical changes take place, and information is thus physical. On this account, the act of living can be seen as replicating and preserving the information that a living body is comprised of. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 17 'Dreams') | |
| A reaction: [He emphasises 'the act' of living, rather than a life] |