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Inverted Spectrum
The inverted spectrum is the hypothetical concept, pertaining to the philosophy of color, of two people sharing their color vocabulary and discriminations, although the colors one sees—that person's qualia—are systematically different from the colors the other person sees. Overview The concept dates back to John Locke. It invites us to imagine two individuals who perceive colors differently: where one person sees red, the other sees green, and vice versa. Despite this difference in their subjective experiences, they behave and communicate as if their perceptions are the same, and no physical or behavioral test can reveal the inversion. Critics of functionalism, and of physicalism more broadly, argue that if we can imagine this happening without contradiction, it follows that we are imagining a change in a property that determines the way things look to us, but that has no physical basis. In more detail: #Metaphysical identity holds of necessity # If something is possibly f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypothesis
A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or thought. If a hypothesis is repeatedly independently demonstrated by experiment to be true, it becomes a scientific theory. In colloquial usage, the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used interchangeably, but this is incorrect in the context of science. A working hypothesis is a provisionally-accepted hypothesis used for the purpose of pursuing further progress in research. Working hypotheses are frequently discarded, and often proposed with knowledge (and warning) that they are incomplete and thus false, with the intent of moving research in at least somewhat the right direction, especially when scientists are stuck on an issue and brainstorming ideas. A different meaning of the term ''hypothesis'' is used in formal l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberty
Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional law of the United States, ordered liberty means creating a balanced society where individuals have the freedom to act without unnecessary interference ( negative liberty) and access to opportunities and resources to pursue their goals ( positive liberty), all within a fair legal system. Sometimes liberty is differentiated from freedom by using the word "freedom" primarily, if not exclusively, to mean the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; and using the word "liberty" to mean the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all involved. In this sense, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others. Thus liberty entails the responsible use of freedom und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Color
The philosophy of color is a subset of the philosophy of perception that is concerned with the nature of the perceptual experience of color. Any explicit account of color perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or metaphysical views, distinguishing namely between externalism/internalism, which relate respectively to color realism, the view that colors are physical properties that objects possess, and color fictionalism, the view that colors possess no such physical properties. History Philosophical concerns about the nature of color can be traced back at least as far as Anaxagoras (5th century BCE), who favoured color realism in his sophism: "Snow is frozen water. But water is dark in color. Therefore, snow is dark in color." Anaxagoras claimed that our perception deviated from the truth "...owing to the feebleness f the senses" Later, Democritus (circa 400 BCE) would say, "By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Zombie
A philosophical zombie (or "p-zombie") is a being in a thought experiment in the philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal human being but does not have conscious experience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object, it would not feel any pain, but it would react exactly the way any conscious human would. Philosophical zombie arguments are used against forms of physicalism and in defense of the hard problem of consciousness, which is the problem of accounting in physical terms for subjective, intrinsic, first-person, what-it's-like-ness experiences. Proponents of philosophical zombie arguments, such as the philosopher David Chalmers, argue that since a philosophical zombie is by definition physically identical to a conscious person, even its logical possibility refutes physicalism. This is because it establishes the existence of conscious experience as a further fact.Chalmers, D. (1996): The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontological Argument
In the philosophy of religion, an ontological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend to refer to the state of being or existing. More specifically, ontological arguments are commonly conceived ''a priori'' in regard to the organization of the universe, whereby, if such organizational structure is true, God must exist. The first ontological argument in Western Christian traditionSzatkowski, Miroslaw, ed. 2012. ''Ontological Proofs Today''. Ontos Verlag. "There are three main periods in the history of ontological arguments. The first was in 11th century, when St. Anselm of Canterbury came up with the first ontological argument" (p. 22). was proposed by Saint Anselm of Canterbury in his 1078 work, '' Proslogion'' (), in which he defines God as "a being than which no greater can be conceived," and argues that such a being must exist in the mind, even in that of the pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary's Room
The knowledge argument (also known as Mary's Room, Mary the Colour Scientist, or Mary the super-scientist) is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982), and extended in "What Mary Didn't Know" (1986). The experiment describes Mary, a scientist who exists in a black-and-white world where she has extensive access to physical descriptions of color, but no actual perceptual experience of color. Mary has learned everything there is to learn about color, but she has never actually experienced it for herself. The central question of the thought experiment is whether Mary will gain new knowledge when she goes outside of the colorless world and experiences seeing in color. The experiment is intended to argue against physicalism—the view that the universe, including all that is mental, is entirely physical. Jackson says that the "irresistible conclusion" is that "there are more properties than physicalists talk about". Jac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Further Facts
In philosophy, further facts are facts that do not logical consequence, follow logically from the physical facts of the world. Reductionism, Reductionists who argue that at bottom there is nothing more than the physical facts thus argue against the existence of further facts. The concept of further facts plays a key role in some of the major works in analytic philosophy of the late 20th century, including in Derek Parfit's ''Reasons and Persons'', and David Chalmers's ''The Conscious Mind''. One context in which the existence of further facts is debated is that of personal identity across time: in what sense is Alice today the ''same'' person as Alice yesterday, given that across the two days the state of her brain is different and the atoms that constitute her are different? On the one hand, we may believe that at bottom, there is nothing more than the atoms and their arrangement at different points in time; while we may for practical purposes come up with some notion of sameness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dualism (philosophy Of Mind)
Dualism most commonly refers to: * Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another * Property dualism, a view in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics which holds that, although the world is composed of just one kind of substance—the physical kind—there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties * Cosmological dualism, the theological or spiritual view that there are only two fundamental concepts, such as "good" and "evil", and that these two concepts are in every way opposed to one another Dualism may also refer to: * Dualism (cybernetics), systems or problems in which an intelligent adversary attempts to exploit the weaknesses of the investigator * Dualism (Indian philosophy), the belief held by certain schools of Indian philosophy that reality is fundamentally composed of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Problem Of Consciousness
In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioural functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation—that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioural—since each physical system can be explained purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon. Proponents of the hard problem propose that it is categorically different from the easy problems since no mechanistic or behavioural explanation could explain the character of an experience, not even in principle. Even after all the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skepticism
Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the person doubts that these claims are accurate. In such cases, skeptics normally recommend not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e. maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the claim. This attitude is often motivated by the impression that the available evidence is insufficient to support the claim. Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology. More informally, skepticism as an expression of questioning or doubt can be applied to any topic, such as politics, religion, or pseudoscience. It is often applied within restricted domains, such as morality (moral skepticism), atheism (skepticism about the existence of God), or the supernatural. Some theorists distinguish "good" or mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Representationalism
In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, are differing models that describe the nature of conscious experiences.Lehar, Steve. (2000)The Function of Conscious Experience: An Analogical Paradigm of Perception and Behavior, ''Consciousness and Cognition''.Lehar, Steve. (2000), ''The Function of Conscious Experience''. The debate arises out of the metaphysical question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself or merely an internal perceptual copy of that world generated by our conscious experience. Indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework. Furthermore, indirect realism is a core tenet of the cognitivism paradigm in psychology and cognitive science. While there is superficial overlap, the indirect mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioralism
Behavioralism is an approach in the philosophy of science, describing the scope of the fields now collectively called the behavioral sciences; this approach dominated the field until the late 20th century. Behavioralism attempts to explain human behavior from an unbiased, neutral point of view, focusing only on what can be verified by direct observation, preferably using statistical and quantitative methods. In doing so, it rejects attempts to study internal human phenomena such as thoughts, subjective experiences, or human well-being. The rejection of this paradigm as overly-restrictive would lead to the rise of cognitive approaches in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Origins From 1942 through the 1970s, behavioralism gained support. It was probably Dwight Waldo who coined the term for the first time in a book called "Political Science in the United States" which was released in 1956. It was David Easton however who popularized the term. It was the site of discussion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
