Questions
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Spinoza says the free man thinks of death least of all. Is that advice, or a description?
Ethics Part IV, Proposition 67, in Elwes's translation: "A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life." I keep reading it two ways. As advice: don't brood; turn your…
Started by Pieter van DijkhuizenAnswer first (no replies yet) -
If perception is free of concepts, as Dignāga says, how do I ever see a cup as a cup?
I've been reading an introduction to Buddhist epistemology on the train, and I'm stuck on Dignāga's definition of perception (pratyakṣa) as "free from conceptual construction". As I understand it, the object of perception is the bare particular, and anything general, like "cup",…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen1 reply -
What is functionalism, and why do people think it supports machine consciousness?
People in AI discussions often say that "on a functionalist view" a machine could be conscious. I have a vague sense of what that means but I'd like to understand it properly. What exactly does functionalism claim? Why do people think it…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen3 replies -
If a system passes every behavioural test, what would still be missing?
Suppose a future system passes every test we can think of. It holds conversations, explains its reasoning, makes jokes that land, learns new tasks quickly, and reacts appropriately to pain-like signals in a robot body. Some people would say there's nothing more…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies -
Frege and Husserl started on the same side. What was the psychologism dispute about?
I've been reading about the split between analytic and continental philosophy because my colleagues treat it as two tribes. What surprised me is that both traditions are said to trace back, around 1900, to two men who agreed about something: Frege and…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen5 replies -
Does Spinoza solve the mind–body problem or just rename it?
I came to this site for philosophy of mind and stayed for Spinoza, so I owe the question. Spinoza's move, as I understand it: there is one substance, with infinitely many attributes, of which we know two, thought and extension. A mind…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies -
What is Carnap’s distinction between internal and external questions, in plain terms?
I build machine-learning systems, and I've been reading about debates over whether numbers or properties "really exist". Several people pointed me to Carnap's paper "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" (1950) as the place where someone argued these debates are confused. I read it…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies -
Strong Kleene, weak Kleene, Łukasiewicz: what actually differs between the tables?
I've been reading about how to reason with partially evaluated expressions, where some sub-expressions haven't been computed yet or failed. That led me to three-valued logics, and now I have three sets of truth tables on my desk that look almost identical.…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies -
Soundness and completeness of a logical system: what exactly is being proved?
I'm stuck on vocabulary, having no formal training in logic. I've read that a logical system can be sound and complete: everything provable is true, and everything true is provable. Fine. But then I read that Gödel proved a completeness theorem in…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies -
How did Kripke’s possible worlds turn S4 and S5 from arbitrary axioms into something meaningful?
I've been reading about modal logic for fun. I understand the operators. What I don't understand is the history I keep seeing summarised: C. I. Lewis invented several systems, S1 to S5, with different axioms; nobody could say which was "correct" or…
Started by Pieter van Dijkhuizen4 replies