Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Why there isn't a ready-made world', 'Purple Haze' and 'talk'

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9 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / d. Explanatory gap
Even if we identify pain with neural events, we can't explain why those neurons cause that feeling [Levine, by Papineau]
Only phenomenal states have an explanatory gap; water is fully explained by H2O [Levine, by Papineau]
Materialism won't explain phenomenal properties, because the latter aren't seen in causal roles [Papineau on Levine]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
God can't have silly perfections, but how do we decide which ones are 'silly'? [Joslin]