5 ideas
| 23304 | The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory. | |
| From: Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference') | |
| A reaction: The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow. |
| 23303 | Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable. | |
| From: Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other') | |
| A reaction: An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 10246 | The limit of science is isomorphism of theories, with essences a matter of indifference [Weyl] |
| Full Idea: A science can determine its domain of investigation up to an isomorphic mapping. It remains quite indifferent as to the 'essence' of its objects. The idea of isomorphism demarcates the self-evident boundary of cognition. | |
| From: Hermann Weyl (Phil of Mathematics and Natural Science [1949], 25-7), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
| A reaction: Shapiro quotes this in support of his structuralism, but it is a striking expression of the idea that if there are such things as essences, they are beyond science. I take Weyl to be wrong. Best explanation reaches out beyond models to essences. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |