Ideas of David J.Chalmers, by Theme

[Australian, b.1966, Taught at the University of Indiana. Professor at Australian National University.]

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3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth

14713

Truth in a scenario is the negation in that scenario being a priori incoherent

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / a. Nature of supervenience

2392	Properties supervene if you can't have one without the other

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / b. Types of supervenience

2393	Logical supervenience is when one set of properties must be accompanied by another set

2394	Natural supervenience is when one set of properties is always accompanied by another set

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

2398	Reduction requires logical supervenience

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 5. Physicalism

16048

Physicalism says in any two physically indiscernible worlds the positive facts are the same [Bennett,K]

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories

2401	All facts are either physical, experiential, laws of nature, second-order final facts, or indexical facts about me

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity

16424

Strong metaphysical necessity allows fewer possible worlds than logical necessity

16425

Metaphysical necessity is a bizarre, brute and inexplicable constraint on possibilities

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 10. Impossibility

16426

How can we know the metaphysical impossibilities; the a posteriori only concerns this world

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary

13956

Kripke is often taken to be challenging a priori insights into necessity

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible

13963

Maybe logical possibility does imply conceivability - by an ideal mind

16473

Modal Rationalism: conceivability gives a priori access to modal truths [Stalnaker]

19258

Evaluate primary possibility from some world, and secondary possibility from this world [Vaidya]

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible

2407	One can wrongly imagine two things being non-identical even though they are the same (morning/evening star)

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs

2390	We attribute beliefs to people in order to explain their behaviour

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities

14712

A sentence is a priori if no possible way the world might actually be could make it false

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception

2397	'Perception' means either an action or a mental state

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory

2422	The structure of the retina has already simplified the colour information which hits it

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

2396	Reductive explanation is not the be-all and the end-all of explanation

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind

2426	Why are minds homogeneous and brains fine-grained?

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness

2391	Can we be aware but not conscious?

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / d. Purpose of consciousness

2412	Can we explain behaviour without consciousness?

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness

2386	Hard Problem: why brains experience things

2416	What turns awareness into consciousness?

2423	Going down the scale, where would consciousness vanish?

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy

2403	Nothing in physics even suggests consciousness

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories

2400	Is intentionality just causal connections?

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia

2419	Why should qualia fade during silicon replacement?

2389	Sometimes we don't notice our pains

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 6. Inverted Qualia

2402	It seems possible to invert qualia

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 7. Blindsight

2415	In blindsight both qualia and intentionality are missing

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 4. Errors in Introspection

2414	When distracted we can totally misjudge our own experiences

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism

2409	Maybe dualist interaction is possible at the quantum level?

2411	Supervenience makes interaction laws possible

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism

2424	It is odd if experience is a very recent development

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 7. Zombies

2413	If I can have a zombie twin, my own behaviour doesn't need consciousness

17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 3. Psycho-Functionalism

2417	Does consciousness arise from fine-grained non-reductive functional organisation?

17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 7. Chinese Room

2428	Maybe the whole Chinese Room understands Chinese, though the person doesn't

17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique

2418	The Chinese Mind doesn't seem conscious, but then nor do brains from outside

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 3. Property Dualism

2406	H2O causes liquidity, but no one is a dualist about that

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism

2405	Perhaps consciousness is physically based, but not logically required by that base

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind

2395	Zombies imply natural but not logical supervenience

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 6. Mysterianism

9318	Phenomenal consciousness is fundamental, with no possible nonphenomenal explanation [Kriegel/Williford]

2404	Nothing external shows whether a mouse is conscious

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability

2429	Temperature (etc.) is agreed to be reducible, but it is multiply realisable

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought

18403

Indexicals may not be objective, but they are a fact about the world as I see it

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 10. Two-Dimensional Semantics

14708

Rationalist 2D semantics posits necessary relations between meaning, apriority, and possibility [Schroeter]

13958

The 'primary intension' is non-empirical, and fixes extensions based on the actual-world reference

13959

The 'secondary intension' is determined by rigidifying (as H2O) the 'water' picked out in the actual world

2399	Meaning has split into primary ("watery stuff"), and secondary counterfactual meaning ("H2O")

13957

Primary and secondary intensions are the a priori (actual) and a posteriori (counterfactual) aspects of meaning

13961

We have 'primary' truth-conditions for the actual world, and derived 'secondary' ones for counterfactual worlds

14739

'Water' is two-dimensionally inconstant, with different intensions in different worlds [Sider]

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions

13962

Two-dimensional semantics gives a 'primary' and 'secondary' proposition for each statement

19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths

13960

In two-dimensional semantics we have two aspects to truth in virtue of meaning

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions

16427

Presumably God can do anything which is logically possible