Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Sweet Dreams', 'Letter to Pythocles' and 'fragments/reports'

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13 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
We should accept as explanations all the plausible ways in which something could come about [Epicurus]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology
A cosmos is a collection of stars and an earth, with some sort of boundary, movement and shape [Epicurus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 3. Deism
God does not intervene in heavenly movements, but is beyond all action and perfectly happy [Epicurus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]