New answers tagged philosophy-of-mind
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He was a keen observer and a scientist. So I think he is giving as true a report as he could. I don’t think Freud failed. Rather, we failed because we wanted something “positive”, and Freud was/is relentlessly negative. He did not promise a cure for neurotics because they could never be completely cured under our system. If OP is studying Freud, then I can ...
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I expect this was a real mirror. Judging by the vocalizations, the child was about the age that object permanence and self-identification (recognizing a mirror reflection as the self) begin to become features of cognition: roughly six to nine months. That developmental fact wasn’t formalized until well after Freud’s death, of course, but Freud (for all his ...
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Mathematics does not depend on time, except if it wants to :)
If we take your expression (x+3=5) , from mathematical standpoint first we must define operands (numbers 3 and 5 ) then operators ( + and =, respectively addition and relation of equality) . We must define logic to be used for evaluating truthfulness of the expression (Boolean logic/algebra is ...
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Mathematical facts are timeless. They are discovered by axioms that happen to be chosen from the intuition of the mathematician. A physical object, produced from the same factory, identical in all physical characteristics is necessarily distinguished by the fact that
They are made of fermions that cannot occupy the same quantum state
Things are more of ...
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My $0.10 of wisdom is this: if you try to apply philosophy to the question, you'll end up with either a physics conundrum whose empirical testability is provably indeterminable, or you will begin doubting in the soundness of the foundations of mathematics and/or mathematics' suitability to model anything other than perhaps itself. On the other hand, my ...
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Thoughts are not immaterial. Thoughts are neural activity, period. They do not float around in your head and are not dissipated or stored intact. They are neural "experiences" that can be replayed as "memories." They seem to be immaterial due to the brain's perception mechanism that we identify with as "self." "I" have this thought of "going to get ice ...
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Some dictionaries say
desire:
a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for
something to happen.
a strong feeling that you want something:
a strong feeling of wanting something, or something you want:
motivation:
a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.
enthusiasm for doing something:
the need or reason for doing ...
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Old thread but I imagine a perfect copy would not split your sense of self, it would simply create a separate being exactly like you for a time.
I thought of it this way: if the ocean made a wave and then made an identical wave perfectly down to the atom, both waves are still separate entities; however, what if I were theoretically cut in two but both ...
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This is not a merely linguistic question since desire and motivation fulfil logically different roles in the explanation of action.
Desire connects with motivation at least in this way: If I did an intentional action, say I bought a packet of cigarettes without coercion or constraint, then it makes sense to ask what my motivation was in buying the ...
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I find the above answers to your question unsatisfying in one way or another. (Not that I have a more conclusive answer hiding up my sleeve for you.)
Nonetheless, contrary to some earlier responses, it seems a very pertinent philosophical question to me. (Of course, if you know that you already know all that there is to know about philosophy, then you ...
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Whenever I think about this issue, I am reminded of the Greek myth of Cassandra, who was given the gift of foretelling the future, and then cursed so that no one would ever believe her. Doing philosophy often feels like that...
It's worth keeping in mind that philosophically-minded people often have artistic temperaments. They have keen insights: they see ...
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I will assume that we all do have subjective experiences which correspond precisely to the information encoded by specific objective brain states, and that the particular subjective qualities which identify different experiences may safely be referred to as qualia, a set of assumptions which some philosophers doubt.
A common tenet of qualia theory is that ...
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When a group is alienated by a society — meaning that some social boundary is created that cannot easily be crossed — the society as a whole must necessarily mythologize the alienated group. The alienated group cannot be ignored or dismissed, since it has a real presence in the consciousness of the society. But at the same time the alienated group cannot be ...
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Imagine a pink Goblin. Give him two very white ears. Now change his color to blue. Make him a bit shorter than he was.
Good. Now where does this Goblin "exist"? In my understanding I have come to accept that "exist" is a loaded word and can suffer from ambiguity of meaning based on different contexts. To say that something exists, like numbers, when ...
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Not to be glib, but it does "exist" "somewhere." In your mind or imagination, experience, etc., as, for instance, qualia. Moreover, a classical idealist (See metaphysical/ontological idealism, say, ala Berkeley), essentially holds that the mental "it" of experience [though any idealist worth his salt would distinguish between, say, your imagination and a ...
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Godel had an anxiety disorder, and very probably was on the autistic spectrum. He thought everyone except his wife was trying to poison him. After his wife died, he pretty much stopped eating. He is of course considered a mathematician, but there can be no doubt his Incompleteness Theorems are among the most important philosophical insights of the last ...
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The essence of identification — of identifying with another person (in life or art) — is finding a sense of 'likeness' between the self and the other. This is common knowledge. Less commonly understood is the fact that this act of identifying has a sort of direction, meaning that either:
one moves the self to the position of the other, saying in effect: "I ...
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The choice of the word "cognitivism" turns on the similarity between beliefs and cognitions as propositional. A finessed account could be the acceptance of why-questions for imperatives instead of just straight imperative doubt, i.e. "Why do this?" vs. "Do this?" The cognitivist believes in at least formal answers to the first question, whereas ...
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'Cognitivism' here relates to knowledge (cf.'cognition'). If moral cognitivism holds, then there are at least some moral truths that can be and are known. Here's how the concept of moral cognitivism can be built up:
Suppose one concedes that moral judgments may be true or false. Does it follow that
he commits himself to moral cognitivism? No, for the ...
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I too found 'cognitivism' a confusing term when I studied ethics. It does make you think of mental processes rather than truth and falsity. I think the point is that if you are thinking about something (also called intentionality) then you are considering if that state of affairs is true or not.
Beliefs can be true and false. You can hold true or false ...
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