Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Popular Scientific Lectures', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Blank Slate'

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13 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
Laws of nature are just records of regularities and correlations, with concepts to make recording them easier [Mach, by Harré]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / d. Location of mind
Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker]
There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker]
Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle]