60 ideas
15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
2584 | Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block] |
6172 | The Inverted Earth example shows that phenomenal properties are not representational [Block, by Rowlands] |
2582 | A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block] |
6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
2574 | Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block] |
6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
2575 | Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block] |
2583 | You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block] |
6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
2576 | In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block] |
5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
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] |
6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
2579 | Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block] |
6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
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] |
3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
18033 | The meaning of a representation is its role in thought, perception or decisions [Block] |
2581 | Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block] |
7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |
1558 | Clearly the gods ignore human affairs, or they would have given us justice [Thrasymachus] |