Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mechanisms', 'I.39 On Solitude' and 'Troubles with Functionalism'

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27 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
16529 Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16530 A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16528 Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
2584 Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
2582 A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
2574 Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
2576 In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block]
2575 Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block]
2583 You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
2578 Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block]
2585 Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block]
2586 In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
2579 Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / b. Turing Machines
2577 Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block]
2580 A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
2581 Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
22269 We must fight fiercely to hang on to the few pleasures which survive into old age [Montaigne]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]