84 ideas
| 8729 | Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Intuitionists in mathematics deny excluded middle, because it is symptomatic of faith in the transcendent existence of mathematical objects and/or the truth of mathematical statements. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: There are other problems with excluded middle, such as vagueness, but on the whole I, as a card-carrying 'realist', am committed to the law of excluded middle. |
| 3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
| Full Idea: We designate token particulars with singular terms, such as: proper names, numerals, definite descriptions, demonstratives, pronouns or variables. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.1) |
| 8763 | The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: It is surely wise to identify the positions in the natural numbers structure with their counterparts in the integer, rational, real and complex number structures. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: The point is that this might be denied, since 3, 3/1, 3.00.., and -3*i^2 are all arrived at by different methods of construction. Natural 3 has a predecessor, but real 3 doesn't. I agree, intuitively, with Shapiro. Russell (1919) disagreed. |
| 18249 | Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A sequence a1,a2,... of rational numbers is 'Cauchy' if for each rational number ε>0 there is a natural number N such that for all natural numbers m, n, if m>N and n>N then -ε < am - an < ε. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 7.2 n4) | |
| A reaction: The sequence is 'Cauchy' if N exists. |
| 8764 | Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: There is a dedicated contingent who hold that the category of 'categories' is the proper foundation for mathematics. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.3 n7) | |
| A reaction: He cites Lawvere (1966) and McLarty (1993), the latter presenting the view as a form of structuralism. I would say that the concept of a category will need further explication, and probably reduce to either sets or relations or properties. |
| 8762 | Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Zermelo said that for each number n, its successor is the singleton of n, so 3 is {{{null}}}, and 1 is not a member of 3. Von Neumann said each number n is the set of numbers less than n, so 3 is {null,{null},{null,{null}}}, and 1 is a member of 3. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 645 - Zermelo could save Plato from the criticisms of Aristotle! These two accounts are cited by opponents of the set-theoretical account of numbers, because it seems impossible to arbitrate between them. |
| 8760 | Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The structuralist vigorously rejects any sort of ontological independence among the natural numbers; the essence of a natural number is its relations to other natural numbers. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to place the emphasis on ordinals (what order?) rather than on cardinality (how many?). I am strongly inclined to think that this is the correct view, though you can't really have relations if there is nothing to relate. |
| 8761 | A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A 'system' is a collection of objects with certain relations among them; a 'pattern' or 'structure' is the abstract form of a system, highlighting the interrelationships and ignoring any features they do not affect how they relate to other objects. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: Note that 'ignoring' features is a psychological account of abstraction, which (thanks to Frege and Geach) is supposed to be taboo - but which I suspect is actually indispensable in any proper account of thought and concepts. |
| 3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Physics is committed to arithmetic, which seems committed to abstract objects such as numbers, and its causal explanations seem to appeal to properties, such as mass and charge. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.3) |
| 8744 | Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The thesis that principles of arithmetic are derivable from the laws of logic runs against a now common view that logic itself has no ontology. There are no particular logical objects. From this perspective logicism is a non-starter. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This criticism strikes me as utterly devastating. There are two routes to go: prove that logic does have an ontology of objects (what would they be?), or - better - deny that arithmetic contains any 'objects'. Or give up logicism. |
| 8749 | Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Term Formalism is the view that mathematics is just about characters or symbols - the systems of numerals and other linguistic forms. ...This will cover integers and rational numbers, but what are real numbers supposed to be, if they lack names? | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.1) | |
| A reaction: Real numbers (such as pi and root-2) have infinite decimal expansions, so we can start naming those. We could also start giving names like 'Harry' to other reals, though it might take a while. OK, I give up. |
| 8750 | Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Game Formalism likens mathematics to chess, where the 'content' of mathematics is exhausted by the rules of operating with its language. ...This, however, leaves the problem of why the mathematical games are so useful to the sciences. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This thought pushes us towards structuralism. It could still be a game, but one we learned from observing nature, which plays its own games. Chess is, after all, modelled on warfare. |
| 8752 | Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The Deductivist version of formalism (sometimes called 'if-thenism') says that the practice of mathematics consists of determining logical consequences of otherwise uninterpreted axioms. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: [Hilbert is the source] More plausible than Term or Game Formalism (qv). It still leaves the question of why it seems applicable to nature, and why those particular axioms might be chosen. In some sense, though, it is obviously right. |
| 8753 | Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Critics commonly complain that the intuitionist restrictions cripple the mathematician. On the other hand, intuitionist mathematics allows for many potentially important distinctions not available in classical mathematics, and is often more subtle. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: The main way in which it cripples is its restriction on talk of infinity ('Cantor's heaven'), which was resented by Hilbert. Since high-level infinities are interesting, it would be odd if we were not allowed to discuss them. |
| 8731 | Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: I classify conceptualists according to what they say about properties or concepts. If someone classified properties as existing independent of language I would classify her as a realist in ontology of mathematics. Or they may be idealists or nominalists. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: In other words, Shapiro wants to eliminate 'conceptualist' as a useful label in philosophy of mathematics. He's probably right. All thought involves concepts, but that doesn't produce a conceptualist theory of, say, football. |
| 8730 | 'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A definition of a mathematical entity is 'impredicative' if it refers to a collection that contains the defined entity. The definition of 'least upper bound' is impredicative as it refers to upper bounds and characterizes a member of this set. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The big question is whether mathematics can live with impredicative definitions, or whether they threaten to be viciously circular, and undermine the whole enterprise. |
| 3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law, the indiscernibility of identicals, is a truism which should not be confused with the more controversial identity of indiscernibles, which depends on the possibility of perfectly replicated universes. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.4) |
| 8725 | Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Rationalism is a long-standing school that can be characterized as an attempt to extend the perceived methodology of mathematics to all of knowledge. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Sometimes called 'Descartes's Dream', or the 'Enlightenment Project', the dream of proving everything. Within maths, Hilbert's Programme aimed for the same certainty. Idea 22 is the motto for the opposition to this approach. |
| 3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Two of the key claims of empiricism are that all knowledge must be justified on the basis of experience, and that all knowledge in fact originates in experience. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) |
| 23029 | Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: What gives reality and stability to our knowledge is the reality and stability of the relations established between its parts..…by the differences and identities with other things which have similarly achieved comparative fixity and substantiality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although I don't sympathise with Green's idealist metaphysics, and nevertheless think that this internalist account of knowledge is correct. |
| 3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Rats and monkeys exhibit 'latent learning' (learning just for fun) which is later beneficial. They learn with no consequences, and then can't learn when the good consequences are available. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a bit of a setback for naturalised epistemology and cognitive science, if learning can't be brought within a stimulus-response framework. |
| 3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Abduction moves from some data to a 'best explanation'. It is not deduction because the data could be true but the conclusion false, and it is not induction because the conclusion may involve data not mentioned in the premises. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], p.322) |
| 3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
| Full Idea: It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) |
| 3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
| Full Idea: There are three main views regarding the ontology of mental phenomena: reductionism, dualism and eliminativism. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: It is precisely this picture which is rejected by Davidson and co, who want something called 'property dualism', with a unique relationship which is labelled 'supervenient'. Unfortunately there is no analogy for it. Not even beauty and a statue. |
| 3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Crick and Koch claim that visual consciousness is correlated with a 40Hz oscillation in layers five and six of the primary visual cortex. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Not many people seem to have been enthused by their proposal. The target is the NCC (Neural Correlate of Consciousness), but we would only accept that location if the 'oscillations' seemed in some way special. |
| 3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The privacy that is a serious issue for the dualist is a peculiarly epistemic privacy that not even telepathy or brain fusions would seem to overcome. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a key idea in the traditional defence of dualism. I'm inclined to think that we are faced with deep privacy not because the mind is so hidden, but because the observer is trapped in NOT being the thing observed. In that sense, rocks are private. |
| 3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
| Full Idea: There can seem to be no escape from the "intentional circle" - the use of one intentional idiom always seems to presuppose the use of another. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: The best explanation of this is Conceptual Dualism (Papineau: Thinking about Consciousness). We are locked into dualist concepts because of our long-term ignorance about the brain. |
| 3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The contents of thoughts, beliefs and desires seem quite distinct from qualia. Arithmetic has no particular feeling attached to it, and Freud showed that many propositional attitudes have no feeling at all, as they are unconscious. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't think we should rule out 'pre-conscious' qualia. The fact that advanced human mental capacities like arithmetic have thinned out their qualia doesn't count against qualia being essential to normal mental life. |
| 3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: If we allow as a brute fact that certain mental states possess conscious qualitative content, there is still the problem of explaining why they possess one content rather than another (why does this stimulus look RED?). | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as the Really Hard Question. The Hard Question is merely 'why are creatures aware of their thoughts?' Personally I don't rule out finding a physical answer to the RHQ, and it is certainly not grounds for drifting into neo-dualism. |
| 3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
| Full Idea: If qualia are non-functionally defined objects, then their attachment to their role in my thought would seem to be metaphysically accidental. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.4.2) | |
| A reaction: A rock at sea can cause a shipwreck without being defined as 'a shipwrecker'. It is, of course, tautological that if qualia have a 'role' in my thoughts, they must have causal powers, but 'function' is a much trickier concept. |
| 3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Qualitative experience is just a particular species of propositional attitude. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.6.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds very implausible. If I hear a loud and baffling noise, is a proposition instantly involved? When a subtle change of colour occurs in the sky at sunset, is that 'propositional'? Do slugs formulate propositions when they taste garlic? |
| 3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenal objects and properties are no more needed to explain the workings of our mind than are angels needed to explain the motion of the planets. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.6.1) | |
| A reaction: The question would be whether 'phenomenal properties' contained unique information, which could therefore influence behaviour. It is also a matter of exactly what you are trying to explain. |
| 3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
| Full Idea: If colour can be modelled as a cone, with points mapped by hue, brightness and saturation, then a rotation could be isomorphic with the hues switched, so we may all experience different hues. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.7.1) | |
| A reaction: from Levine |
| 3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
| Full Idea: It is tempting to think that if a system has concepts for nested intentionality and first-person reflection, it has all that's needed for self-consciousness. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.2.2) | |
| A reaction: If there nothing more than nested intentionality in complex minds like ours, the top level of the nesting would still have a special status. And if the top level always seemed to stay the same while the lower levels changed, I'd probably call it the Self |
| 3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Experiments have shown (Nisbett and Wilson 1977) that people's introspective knowledge is a lot less reliable than they suppose. People are sensitive to but entirely unaware of many factors that influence their social behaviour. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.2.2) | |
| A reaction: This type of observation rests on an overemphasis on the conscious mind. We are not conscious of liver events, or of deep buried brain events, both of which motivate us. We should only expect introspection to reveal what is fully conscious. |
| 3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The most dramatic phenomena undermining the absolute reliability of introspection are those of blindsight and "anosognosia" (unawareness of one's own brain damage). | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.2.2) | |
| A reaction: It might depend on what you expected introspection to reveal. If you only expected it to tell you about your consciousness, it would be unreasonable to expect knowledge of blindsight information by introspection. |
| 3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
| Full Idea: If a computational account of reasoning processes could be given, then there is no need to settle the issue of "free will", as reason could get along without it. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.6) |
| 3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
| Full Idea: We don't need arguments to show that if there were free will then computational accounts of the mind would be inadequate; what is needed is good evidence that there actually exists such free will in the first place. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.6) |
| 3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Defining most mental states seems to requiring citing other mental states - but perhaps behaviourists can define them all simultaneously | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting strategy for trying to avoid the well known circularity of attempting to define mental states in behavioural terms. Behaviourism won't go away. |
| 3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
| Full Idea: There are three different views concerning behaviourism - the 'radical' view, which aims at eliminativism, the 'analytical' view, which is a reductionist enterprise, and the 'methodological' view, somewhere between the two. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4) | |
| A reaction: The first appears to be ontological, the second about relationships between areas of our language, and the third epistemological. You could attempt language reduction because we can only know behaviour, because that's all there is. |
| 3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Animals exhibit 'spontaneous alteration' in their behaviour (e.g. varying the route to the food), or improvisation (finding short cuts instead of following training). They use mental maps, or dead reckoning, not just conditioned responses. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.1.4) | |
| A reaction: If we can't even get a decent behaviourist account of animal behaviour, presumably the chances for humans look even less good. 'Black box' behaviourism, rather than the eliminativist version, might allow internal mechanisms to modify responses. |
| 3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Radical behaviourists say animals emit "similar" responses to "similar" reinforcements, but that is empty without specifying in what respect there is a similarity. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that when you try to specify the similarity you are (supposedly) forced to use mental language to make the distinctions, thus contradicting behaviourism. It is not, though, self-evidently impossible to give a behaviourist specification. |
| 3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The two main anti-behaviourist intuitions are that mind and behaviour only relate contingently, and that for much mental life (thinking, emotion) the resulting behaviour seems unimportant. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Attractive intuitions, but not unquestionable. Since no two states of mind are ever fully identical, we can never test whether the resulting behaviour arises contingently or necessarily. The second point underestimates the physicality of mental life. |
| 3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: If many otherwise ordinary people turned out to have skulls which were empty or filled with oatmeal, would that mean that they didn't have minds? | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 7.1.4) | |
| A reaction: That's a John Locke sort of question, implying that 'persons' are logically independent of their implementation. Personally I would search for a radio receiver, because oatmeal is implausible as a thinker. |
| 3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Neither dualism nor physicalism provides much serious explanation of any mental phenomena, or even much in the way of a program of research. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if people who demand an "explanation of mental phenomena" are quite clear about what it is they want. God might just say "Mental phenomena are just brain events from the brain's point of view". |
| 3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
| Full Idea: So-called 'homuncular functionalism' (such as Freud's or Plato's internal struggles of the soul) needn't lead to an infinite regress if eventually the homunculi become so stupid they could be replaced by a machine. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 7.2.2) | |
| A reaction: from Fodor |
| 3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The question for a computational-representation theory about the Chinese Room is: is what is happening inside the room functionally equivalent to what is happening inside a normal Chinese speaker? | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Certainly the Room lacks morality ('how can I torture my sister?'). It won't spot connections between recent questions. It won't ask itself questions. It will take years to spot absurd questions. |
| 3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
| Full Idea: You should no more attribute understanding of Chinese to this one part of the system than you should ascribe the properties of the entire British Empire to Queen Victoria. This is the fallacy of division. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.2.3) | |
| A reaction: This very nicely pinpoints what is wrong with the Chinese Room argument (nice analogy, too). If you carefully introspect what is involved when you 'understand' something, it is immensely complex, though it feels instant and simple. |
| 3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
| Full Idea: It is always possible to provide incompatible interpretations of formal theories, so that a computer could use the same program one day to play chess, the next to fight a war. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to present a huge gulf between human chess players (who 'understand' what they are doing) and machines, but I don't accept it. Giving the machine cameras and multi-level software would fix it. |
| 3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Reduction is not the same as elimination; if chemists reduce water to H2O, or biologists reduce life to a complex chemical process, they have not shown that they don't exist. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'elimination'. It is important to be clear whether you are eliminating something from life, or from strict philosophical ontology. Ontologists never mention mountains. |
| 3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
| Full Idea: There is clear evidence against eliminative materialism in the law-like correlations found among millions of answers in standardised school tests, for which it can give no explanation. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.3) | |
| A reaction: Not very persuasive. If neural networks got involved in complex competitions with one another, you would expect them to evolve similar tactics. |
| 3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Connectionism is a way of capturing the holism of pattern recognition, as stressed by many critics of computational theories of mind. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: I am drawn to the idea that arithmetic derives from pattern recognition, and the latter is basic to all minds (a kind of instant unthinking induction), so this seems to me a win for connectionism. |
| 3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Connectionism is better than other AI strategies at capturing the extraordinary swiftness of perception, and of degrading in a 'graceful' way. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: A good theory had better capture the extraordinary swiftness of perception. Also the swiftness of recognition. Compare seeing a surprising old friend in a crowd, and recognising the person you are looking for. |
| 3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Connectionism offers promising accounts of irrational behaviour, such as people's bias towards positive instances, and their tendency to fall for the gamblers' fallacy. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: That is strong support, because the chances of a computational robot having such tendencies is virtually nil, but all humans have the biases referred to (even philosophers). |
| 3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
| Full Idea: In connectionism, each node is given an activation level, and each branch a weight, according to possible degree of effect. This results in 'excitatory' and 'inhibitory' connections. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: Whether such a system could ever be 'conscious' is not the only interesting question. What could such a system do? Could it ever be good at philosophy? |
| 3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Eight properties of mind are problems for the identity theory: rationality, free will, spatiality, privacy, intentionality, essential mentality, subjective content, and the explanatory gap. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: The list could go on: poetry, creativity, love, normativity... Actually, these are problems for every theory. |
| 3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
| Full Idea: In physicalism the "ghost in the machine" is merely replaced by the "complexity" in it. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) | |
| A reaction: This is nonsense. No one thinks that mere complexity generates consciousness. The assumption is that we would begin to understand the mind only if we could somehow map the connections of the brain. |
| 3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Propositional attitudes divide into two broad types: neutral informational ones (belief, suspicion, imagining), and directional ones which motivate an agent (preference, desire, hate). | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Since suspicions are motivating, and preferences are informational, this is not a very sharp distinction. An alternative would be to say that there is one type, and sometimes the will gets involved. |
| 3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Grammatical sensitivity is in no way a physical property of the stimulus, and we can't imagine how to build a device which would produce grammatical structures in response to the environment. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: You could try to program it with a set of (say) Aristotelian categories, and mechanisms to sort the environment accordingly. It then has to query its database, in response to practical needs. A doddle. |
| 3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Ninety percent of most young children's utterances are grammatical. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.4) | |
| A reaction: This is good evidence for some sort of innate element in the grammar of language. But the accurate grammar is not in a particular language. Good communication must be the driving force in all this. |
| 3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The language of thought need not only be confined to creatures which speak a natural language. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.1.1) | |
| A reaction: I take it as axiomatic that our brains are no different in principles and fundamental mechanics from the lowliest of creatures. See Idea 7509. |
| 3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Very young children have been shown (Brown and Halon 1970) to be 'reinforced' not for their grammar but for the informational content of what they say. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is what you would expect. It doesn't follow that the grammar comes from innate mechanisms, because the pressure to get the information right could impose increasing accuracy in grammar. |
| 3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Processing of images and mental models seems to require, and therefore is unlikely to replace, computation and representation. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.1.2) | |
| A reaction: A good point. If you are a fan of mental imagery, you still have to explain how we can hold an image, or recall it, or manipulate it. I always, I don't know why, wince at the thought of 'computations' among neurons. |
| 3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The computational/representational theory of thought has given a good account of deduction, but mechanical theories of induction, abduction and practical reason are needed in order to make a machine which could reason. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: This is the best analysis of rationality that I have found (four components: deduction, induction, abduction, practical reason). I can think of nothing to add, and certainly none of these should be omitted. |
| 3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Recent experiments (Shepard 1982) suggest people have imagistic representations they inspect when solving problems. In comparing two rotated images, the time for comparison varies with the angle of rotation. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.3) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't prove that they are slowly rotating something. It may just be harder to make the leap to the new shape, when it is 'further away'. Picturing a 20-sided figure, we don't add sides one-by-one. |
| 3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
| Full Idea: To map things like food over time, animals must somehow represent events as having temporal properties, and somehow store those representations ready for later use. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: If the mechanisms for doing this are basic, then so is the ontology. Objects must be categorised, properties spotted, time-spans correlated etc. 'Represent' needs to be sharp to be useful. |
| 3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The oldest version of the externalist theory of meaning is the Fido/Fido theory, according to which the meaning of a representation is the object for which it stands. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Modern baptismal theories of reference seem to have taken us back to this, for distinct individuals such as Aristotle, or natural kinds like gold. What, though, does 'Fido' mean to me? Asthma! |
| 3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) |
| 3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
| Full Idea: You couldn't directly verify that the whole universe had stopped for one hour, but you might indirectly verify it (by prediction) - but then almost anything could be very indirectly verified. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: Does indirect verification include time travel? Or perfect knowledge of quantum theory, and total knowledge of quantum states. Laplace's Hypothesis. |
| 3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
| Full Idea: The view that the meaning of language of thought expressions is based on their conceptual role (derived from Wittgenstein's idea of meaning as use), is most plausible for the logical connectives like "and", but implausible for, say, "animal". | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It was the logical connectives that got LW started on this track. If it doesn't work for 'animal' then does that mean we need two different theories? |
| 3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Semantic holism is a desperate measure. Belief content would be continually changed by new beliefs, evidence for a belief would change the target belief, and no two people would ever agree on concepts. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It is far more plausible to say language is a bit on the holistic side. Total holism is mad. |
| 3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Causal histories may have some role to play in a theory of reference, but the chain of causation requires internal characterisations at each stage, and the original dubber had one thing rather than another in mind when dubbing. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.1) | |
| A reaction: The modern view of direct reference seems to prefer social context rather than a complete causal chain. |
| 3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
| Full Idea: What is special about meaning? If meaning and reference are just the result of causal chains, almost everything will mean something, since almost everything is reliably caused by something. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.2) | |
| A reaction: It would be insane to think that all causal events produced meanings. It is probably better not to mention causation at all when discussing meaning. |
| 3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Referential Opacity says you cannot preserve truth if you substitute one referring term for another ('Oedipus desires Jocasta', 'Oedipus desires his mother'). | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.6) | |
| A reaction: ….That is, in the context of expressing a propositional attitude. 'Oedipus desired his mother' was true. This idea requires some ignorance on the part of the person expressing the thought. |
| 3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
| Full Idea: Bifurcated logical particles (either/or, if/then) are in principle beyond the power of any local chaining device to build sentences. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: True in natural languages, but not in formal ones? If P then either if-Q-then-R or if-S-then-T. Is that chaining? If rain, then if light then puddles, or if heavy then floods. Hm. |
| 3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
| Full Idea: What gives people's desires certain moral importance is the fact that they have desires about those desires. | |
| From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.1) | |
| A reaction: from Frankfurt |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The claim of the state is only absolutely paramount on the supposition that in its commands and prohibitions it takes account of all the claims that arise out of human fellowship. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §146), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: He rejects the idea of the general will in ordinary political activity, so it is not clear how this condition could ever be met in practice. Hideous governments just pay lip service to 'human fellowship'. How could you tell whether they believe it? |
| 23051 | Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Liberty was essential, not only as a means to equality, but as part of it. …because the opportunity which was to be equalised was not merely to have and to be happy, but to do and to realise. It was 'the right of man to make the best of himself'. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: This nicely identifies the core idea of civilised liberalism (as opposed to the crazy self-seeking kind). I think 'give people the right to make the best of themselves' makes a good slogan, because it implies ensuring that they have the means. |
| 23028 | The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Political effort in all its highest forms is the expression of a belief in the reality of the social spirit as the deeper element in the individual. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although Green is rather literally spiritual, if we express it as a central aspect of human nature, this idea strikes me as correct. Writing in 2021, I am totally bewildered by the entire absence of any 'higher' forms of political expression. |
| 23054 | Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Green condemned pure communism, not in the name of any abstract rights of the individual, but of the right of the community itself to the best that individuals can contribute through the free and spontaneous exercise of their powers of self-expression. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Interesting. In a very authoritarian communist state it does seem that citizens are less able to contribute to the general good. But extreme liberty seems also to undermine the general good. Hm. |
| 23047 | Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Common ownership in early societies is not the denial of a man's private property in the products of his own labour, but the only way under the circumstances of securing it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §218) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: This is announced with some confidence, but it is very speculative. I think there is some truth in Locke's thought that putting work into a creation creates natural ownership. But who owns the raw materials? Why is work valued highly? |
| 23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: A national spirit cannot exist apart from the individuals who embody it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: We see this in football supporters. They are thrilled by the glory of a great victory, but the reality is just the thrill of the players, and the exuberance in each supporter's mind. There is no further entity called the 'glory'. Green was a liberal. |
| 23048 | The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: It is not the power of forcible tenure but the power of utilisation for social ends that is the ground of the permanent recognition that constitutes a right to property. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Tell that to the aristocratic owners of British grouse moors! This just seems to be wishful thinking. Does that mean that I have no right to property if my ends are not 'social'? |
| 23049 | Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so. |