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All the ideas for 'works', 'Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness' and 'works'

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs

6672	Moore's Paradox: you can't assert 'I believe that p but p is false', but can assert 'You believe p but p is false' [Moore,GE, by Lowe]
	Full Idea: Moore's Paradox says it makes no sense to assert 'I believe that p, but p is false', even though it makes perfectly good sense to assert 'I used to believe p, but p is false' or 'You believe p, but p is false'.
	From: report of G.E. Moore (works [1905]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10
	A reaction: I'm not sure if this really deserves the label of 'paradox'. I take it as drawing attention to the obvious fact that belief is commitment to truth. I think my assessment that p is true is correct, but your assessment is wrong. ('True' is not redundant!)

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind

2957	Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood]
	Full Idea: Nagel argues (because of brain bisection experiments) that we should jettison our commonsense assumption that the unity of consciousness is an all-or-nothing affair.
	From: report of Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971]) by Michael Lockwood - Mind, Brain and the Quantum p.84
	A reaction: It seems wrong to call it 'commonsense'. It is an assumption that precedes any judgement, but if you rapidly grasp that your mind is in your brain, it becomes common sense that you can cut lumps out of your mind.

16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self

3285	We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel]
	Full Idea: As a result of the evidence of split-brains, it is possible that the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, …but we may be unable to abandon the idea, no matter what we discover.
	From: Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971], p.164)
	A reaction: I'm not sure what grounds you can have for a claim that we can't abandon our current view of selves, even when the new reality will be utterly different. Rather conservative? I would expect future concepts to roughly match future reality.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

22086	The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
	Full Idea: Kierkegaard insisted that the most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion.
	From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (works [1845]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed Intro
	A reaction: Hume comes to mind for a similar view, but in character Hume was far more rational than Kierkegaard.