13 ideas
| 22101 | Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The study of philosophy has as its purpose to know not what people have thought, but rather the truth about the way things are. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Sententia on 'De Caelo' [1268], I.22.228), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 05 | |
| A reaction: I agree with this deeply unfashionable opinion. Of course, modern investigations must be more sensitive to biases built into language, culture and conceptual schemes. But I am one of those sad old folks who still think truths can be stated. |
| 14767 | The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 14764 | I am saturated with the spirit of physical science [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: I am saturated, through and through, with the spirit of the physical sciences. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.1) |
| 14768 | Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Infallibility in scientific matters seems to me irresistibly comical. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.3) |
| 14765 | Association of ideas is the best philosophical idea of the prescientific age [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the association of ideas is, to my thinking, the finest piece of philosophical work of the prescientific ages. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 14766 | Duns Scotus offers perhaps the best logic and metaphysics for modern physical science [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The works of Duns Scotus have strongly influenced me. …His logic and metaphysics, torn away from its medievalism, …will go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |