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Floating Man
The floating man, flying man, or man suspended in air argument is a thought experiment by the Persian philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) which argues for the existence of the soul. This thought experiment is used to argue in favor of knowledge by presence. Background Ibn Sina wrote the argument while imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan in the Iranian province of Hamadan. He concluded that the soul is immaterial and substantial. He also claimed that no human could deny their own consciousness or awareness. According to Ibn Sina, the floating man could attain the concept of being without any sense experience. Using his knowledge, Ibn Sina saved one of the Iranian rulers, Shams al-Dawla, from death, which caused the envy of many of the courtiers. As a result, after the death of Shams al-Dawla, Ibn Sina was arrested and imprisoned in a castle between the Iranian provinces of Hamadan and Isfahan, where he supposedly wrote the floating man argument. The name of that castle is recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Thought Experiment
A thought experiment is an imaginary scenario that is meant to elucidate or test an argument or theory. It is often an experiment that would be hard, impossible, or unethical to actually perform. It can also be an abstract hypothetical that is meant to test our intuitions about morality or other fundamental philosophical questions. History The ancient Greek , "was the most ancient pattern of mathematical proof", and existed before Euclidean geometry, Euclidean mathematics, where the emphasis was on the conceptual, rather than on the experimental part of a thought experiment. Johann Witt-Hansen established that Hans Christian Ørsted was the first to use the equivalent German term . Ørsted was also the first to use the equivalent term in 1820. By 1883, Ernst Mach used in a different sense, to denote exclusively the conduct of a experiment that would be subsequently performed as a by his students. Physical and mental experimentation could then be contrasted: Mach asked hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nervous System
In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes that impact the body, then works in tandem with the endocrine system to respond to such events. Nervous tissue first arose in Ediacara biota, wormlike organisms about 550 to 600 million years ago. In Vertebrate, vertebrates, it consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists mainly of nerves, which are enclosed bundles of the long fibers, or axons, that connect the CNS to every other part of the body. Nerves that transmit signals from the brain are called motor nerves (efferent), while those nerves that transmit information from the body to the CNS are called sensory nerves (aff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism. His most famous works are ''The Book of Healing'', a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and ''The Canon of Medicine'', a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval European University, universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on Astronomy in medieval Islam, astronomy, Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, alchemy, Geography and cartography in medieval Islam, geography and geology, Psychology in medieval Islam, psychology, Islamic theology, Logic in Islamic philosophy, logic, Mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Soul Dualism
Soul dualism, also called dualistic pluralism or multiple souls, is a range of beliefs that a person has two or more kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions ("body soul") and the other one can leave the body ("free soul" or "wandering soul"). Sometimes the plethora of soul types can be even more complex. Sometimes, a shaman's "free soul" may be held to be able to undertake a spirit journey. Examples Austronesia The belief in soul dualism found throughout most Austronesian shamanistic traditions. The reconstructed Proto-Austronesian word for the "body soul" is ''*nawa'' ("breath", "life", or "vital spirit"). It is located somewhere in the abdominal cavity, often in the liver (Proto-Austronesian ''*qaCay''), or the heart. The "free soul" is located in the head. Its names are usually derived from Proto-Austronesian ''*qaNiCu'' ("ghost", "spirit f the dead), which also apply to other non-human nature spirits. The "free soul" is also referr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Property Dualism
Property dualism describes a category of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that, although the world is composed of just one kind of Substance theory, substance—Materialism, the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and Mental state, mental properties. In other words, it is the view that at least some non-physical, mental properties (such as thoughts, imagination and memories) exist in, or naturally Supervenience, supervene upon, certain physical substances (namely brains). Substance dualism, on the other hand, is the view that there exist in the universe two fundamentally different kinds of substance: physical (matter) and non-physical (mind or consciousness), and subsequently also two kinds of properties which inhere in those respective substances. Both substance and property dualism are opposed to reductive physicalism. Notable proponents of property dualism include David Chalmers, Christof Koch, and Richard Fumerton. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mind–body Dualism
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem. Aristotle shared Plato's view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals, and humans: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure, and desire that only humans and other animals share; and the faculty of reason that is unique to humans only. In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a viable organism, wherein each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Duality (mathematics)
In mathematics, a duality translates concepts, theorems or mathematical structures into other concepts, theorems or structures in a one-to-one fashion, often (but not always) by means of an involution operation: if the dual of is , then the dual of is . In other cases the dual of the dual – the double dual or bidual – is not necessarily identical to the original (also called ''primal''). Such involutions sometimes have fixed points, so that the dual of is itself. For example, Desargues' theorem is self-dual in this sense under the ''standard duality in projective geometry''. In mathematical contexts, ''duality'' has numerous meanings. It has been described as "a very pervasive and important concept in (modern) mathematics" and "an important general theme that has manifestations in almost every area of mathematics". Many mathematical dualities between objects of two types correspond to pairings, bilinear functions from an object of one type and another object of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sensory Deprivation
Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch, taste, thermoception (heat-sense), and the ability to know which way is down. Sensory deprivation has been used in various alternative medicines and in psychological experiments (e.g. with an isolation tank). When deprived of sensation, the brain attempts to restore sensation in the form of hallucinations. Short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation; however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, and depression. A related phenomenon is perceptual deprivation, also called the Ganzfeld effect. In this case a constant uniform stimulus is used instead of attempting to remov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Islamic Philosophy
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—''falsafa'' (), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and ''kalam'' (), which refers to a Rationalism, rationalist form of Schools of Islamic theology#ʿIlm_al-Kalām, Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashari, Ashaira and Mu'tazila. Early Islamic philosophy began with al-Kindi in the 2nd century of the Islamic calendar (early 9th century CE) and ended with Averroes, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE), broadly coinciding with the period known as the Islamic Golden Age, Golden Age of Islam. The death of Averroes effectively marked the end of a specific discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Islamic peripatetic school, and philosophical activity declined significantly in the west of the Islamic world, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cogito Ergo Sum
The Latin , usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French language, French as , in his 1637 ''Discourse on the Method'', so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his ''Principles of Philosophy'', and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a Marginalia, margin note, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt." In the posthumously published ''The Search for Truth by Natural Light'', he expressed this insight as ("I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am").. Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"). Descartes's statement became a fundamental element of Western philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ibn Sina
Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism. His most famous works are ''The Book of Healing'', a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and ''The Canon of Medicine'', a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval European University, universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on Astronomy in medieval Islam, astronomy, Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, alchemy, Geography and cartography in medieval Islam, geography and geology, Psychology in medieval Islam, psychology, Islamic theology, Logic in Islamic philosophy, logic, Mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
