Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Troubles with Functionalism', 'Against the Professors (six books)' and 'What is it like to be a bat?'

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23 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
6021 It is only when we say a proposition that we speak truly or falsely [Sext.Empiricus]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
6020 'Man is a rational mortal animal' is equivalent to 'if something is a man, that thing is a rational mortal animal' [Sext.Empiricus]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
6026 How can you investigate without some preconception of your object? [Sext.Empiricus]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness
3286 An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel]
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]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 7. Zombies
3288 Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel]
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 / D. Property Dualism / 6. Mysterianism
4883 Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel]
3287 We can't be objective about experience [Nagel]
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]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / d. Explanatory gap
4989 Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel]
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]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 9. Contractualism
6032 Right actions, once done, are those with a reasonable justification [Sext.Empiricus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 4. Mathematical Nature
1517 The tektraktys (1+2+3+4=10) is the 'fount of ever-flowing nature' [Sext.Empiricus]