Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Naturalizing the Mind', 'Against the Physicists (two books)' and 'The Unimportance of Identity'

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38 ideas

2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / f. Animal beliefs
A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding [Dretske]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / d. Location of mind
Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / d. Purpose of consciousness
Some activities are performed better without consciousness of them [Dretske]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
Qualia are just the properties objects are represented as having [Dretske]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
In a representational theory of mind, introspection is displaced perception [Dretske]
Introspection is the same as the experience one is introspecting [Dretske]
Introspection does not involve looking inwards [Dretske]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 4. Split Consciousness
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]