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23304
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The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji]
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Full Idea:
The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory.
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From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference')
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A reaction:
The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow.
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23303
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Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji]
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Full Idea:
Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable.
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From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other')
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A reaction:
An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this.
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23217
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All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
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Full Idea:
Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
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From:
Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
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A reaction:
If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.
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