39 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
14329 | Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH] |
4938 | Prior to language, concepts are universals created by self-mapping of brain activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
4934 | Cultures have a common core of colour naming, based on three axes of colour pairs [Edelman/Tononi] |
4924 | A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
4932 | A conscious state endures for about 100 milliseconds, known as the 'specious present' [Edelman/Tononi] |
4931 | Consciousness is a process (of neural interactions), not a location, thing, property, connectivity, or activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
4923 | The three essentials of conscious experience are privateness, unity and informativeness [Edelman/Tononi] |
4941 | Consciousness can create new axioms, but computers can't do that [Edelman/Tononi] |
4930 | Consciousness arises from high speed interactions between clusters of neurons [Edelman/Tononi] |
4929 | Dreams and imagery show the brain can generate awareness and meaning without input [Edelman/Tononi] |
4940 | Physicists see information as a measure of order, but for biologists it is symbolic exchange between animals [Edelman/Tononi] |
4935 | The sensation of red is a point in neural space created by dimensions of neuronal activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
9032 | Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [Price,HH] |
9034 | There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH] |
9035 | If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH] |
9036 | There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH] |
9037 | Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it [Price,HH] |
4936 | The self is founded on bodily awareness centred in the brain stem [Edelman/Tononi] |
4939 | A sense of self begins either internally, or externally through language and society [Edelman/Tononi] |
4925 | Brains can initiate free actions before the person is aware of their own decision [Edelman/Tononi] |
4933 | Consciousness is a process, not a thing, as it maintains unity as its composition changes [Edelman/Tononi] |
9033 | Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH] |
4928 | Brain complexity balances segregation and integration, like a good team of specialists [Edelman/Tononi] |
4927 | Information-processing views of the brain assume the existence of 'information', and dubious brain codes [Edelman/Tononi] |
4922 | Consciousness involves interaction with persons and the world, as well as brain functions [Edelman/Tononi] |
10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
5793 | Concepts and generalisations result from brain 'global mapping' by 'reentry' [Edelman/Tononi, by Searle] |
4926 | Concepts arise when the brain maps its own activities [Edelman/Tononi] |
9030 | Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH] |
9029 | If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH] |
10646 | Our understanding of 'dog' or 'house' arises from a repeated experience of concomitances [Price,HH] |
9031 | The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH] |
10644 | A 'felt familiarity' with universals is more primitive than abstraction [Price,HH] |
4937 | Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |