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Single Idea 8648

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind ]

Full Idea

Spatial predicates are not applicable to ideas; an idea is neither to the right nor to the left of another idea; we cannot give the distances between ideas in millimetres.

Gist of Idea

Ideas are not spatial, and don't have distances between them

Source

Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §61)

Book Ref

Frege,Gottlob: 'The Foundations of Arithmetic (Austin)', ed/tr. Austin,J.L. [Blackwell 1980], p.72

A Reaction

This Fregean thought should be music to the ears of Cartesians, though it does not seem intended as support for dualism. This is the logicians' view of reality, where true inferences are what matter, and brains and souls are irrelevant.

The 14 ideas with the same theme [observing features of a mind]:

13784 Mind is self-ruling, pure, ordering and ubiquitous [Anaxagoras, by Plato]
1714 Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle]
20809 Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
23266 The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen]
18453 Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry]
17196 The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false [Spinoza]
17198 Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza]
17201 The will is finite, but the intellect is infinite [Spinoza]
23242 Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte]
8648 Ideas are not spatial, and don't have distances between them [Frege]
2550 Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty]
3368 Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim]
12636 Mental states have causal powers [Fodor]
6152 Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands]