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venerdì 16 dicembre 2016

Should Earth Shut the Hell Up Robin Hanson

Notebook per
Should Earth Shut the Hell Up
Robin Hanson
Citation (APA): Hanson, R. (2016). Should Earth Shut the Hell Up [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 1
Should Earth Shut the Hell Up? By Robin Hanson
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 8
Should humanity shout to the galaxy “We are here!”?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 9
aliens that hear our shouts should be far older and more advanced than us.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 10
We would lose any fight,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 10
we might learn much from them, they can learn little from us.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11
We are unsure of alien friendliness.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 15
all of them instead seem to keep quiet and hide. That seems worrisome.
Nota - Posizione 16
SE SONO VICINI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 16
If aliens are instead far away, then by the time any response gets here we will be extinct, or will have already learned most of what aliens could teach us.
Nota - Posizione 17
X SE SONO LONTANI... INUTILITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 19
these considerations seem to make a strong, if not overwhelming, case for not yelling on purpose yet.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 21
we should wait and learn more before yelling.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
the case for not letting each group decide this for themselves seems overwhelming. Such decisions have global consequences.
Nota - Posizione 23
IMPORRE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25
If global governance makes sense for anything, it makes sense for this.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25
Some say that we can’t control yells to aliens (Harrison 2014). But far fewer people can yell loudly to aliens than can add CO2 to our atmosphere.
Nota - Posizione 29
x CO2
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 31
Earth has in fact been yelling to aliens, but accidentally, such as by radar that probes planets, asteroids, and comets.
Nota - Posizione 32
x SEGNALI ACCIDENTALI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 37
our loudest yells come from the Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico, when used to probe asteroids and the like.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 43
There are some people, [Seth Shostak] acknowledges, who might worry that broadcasting “The Day the Earth Stood Still” could be inimical to our interests. He added, “I think that if these people are truly worried about such things, they might best begin by shutting down the radar at the local airport.” (Overbye 2008)
Nota - Posizione 47
x ARGOMENTO LIBERTARIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 49
we can use the amounts that we spend on accidental yells to help guess the yell risk that we should tolerate.
Nota - Posizione 49
X PROPOSTA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 59
Thus if the world were in a steady state of income and radar cost and sending, we might estimate that continued indefinite use of the Arecibo radar in send mode at current levels is a bad deal if, over the long run, such use increases the chance of our being destroyed by aliens by even one in a billion.
Nota - Posizione 61
x COSTI BENEFICI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 62
That seems to me a pretty high bar;
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63
As the world gets richer,
Nota - Posizione 63
x LE COSE SONO PEGGIORI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 64
improving technology combined with increased spending on radar sending should result in more powerful radar signals,
Nota - Posizione 65
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 69
we also can’t trust planetary scientists or military strategists to decide if the value they produce via accidental yells is worth the risks they impose. All such parties are plausibly biased by selfish career
Nota - Posizione 70
x PUBLIC CHOICE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 71
fraction of aliens who are friendly.
Nota - Posizione 71
VARIABILE CHIAVE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 72
a consensus apparently arose among many in this area that aliens must be overwhelmingly friendly
Nota - Posizione 72
x ORTODOSSIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 74
Most conventional social scientists I know would find this view quite implausible;
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 75
Why is this kind-aliens view then so common?
Nota - Posizione 75
x PERCHÈ L ORTODOSS
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 76
non-social-scientists have believed modern cultural propaganda claims that our dominant cultures today have a vast moral superiority over most other cultures through history.
Nota - Posizione 77
x IPOTESI: SI CREDE AL PIÙ AVANZATI PIÙ MORALI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 78
This propaganda naturally suggests that very advanced aliens must have long since eliminated such conflict.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 79
Communist SETI researchers similarly assumed aliens to be communist.
Nota - Posizione 79
RICERCHE COMUNISTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 81
Yes, over time violence has fallen, but we advance in part by learning to more finely condition our behavior on context. We pick fewer pointless fights, but we also more quickly take advantage of those who can’t fight back (Pfeffer 2010).
Nota - Posizione 84
x TEORIA DELLA VIOLENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 84
Think of academics who are cordial among equals, but unfairly referee papers from rivals who can’t much retaliate.
Nota - Posizione 85
x ESEMPIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 85
Aliens who treat their equals well may still treat humans badly.
Nota - Posizione 85
x TESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 86
we should cut way back on accidental yelling to aliens, such as via Arecibo radar sending, if continuing at current rates would over the long run bring even a one in a billion chance of alerting aliens to come destroy us. And even if this chance is now below one in a billion, it will rise with time
Nota - Posizione 88
x CONCLUSIONI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 90
Pascal’s Alien Wager
Nota - Posizione 90
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 99
In the ordinary Pascal’s wager, God is said to greatly reward those who believe in him and do what he favors. The rewards are so huge that even those who assign only a small chance to God existing are wise to try to make themselves believe.
Nota - Posizione 100
x SCOMMESSA DI PASCAL
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 101
A standard response is to point out that a great many different Gods might exist, each of whom favor different actions. If you have little idea of which Gods exist or of what acts they favor, then there is little point in taking their rewards into account.
Nota - Posizione 103
x RISPOSTA STANDARD
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 104
an aliens version of Pascal’s Wager.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 108
there are many other possible kinds of aliens.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 109
maybe there are aliens with a strong sense of status who will destroy us for being uppity by speaking louder than our status justifies.
Nota - Posizione 110
x RAZZA ALIENA. IPOTESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 119
I estimate yelling to be a bad idea.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 127
Slow Growth Is Plenty Fast
Nota - Posizione 127
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 135
David Brin’s
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 137
The lack of visible aliens may be explained in part via a strong tendency of all societies to become “feudal,” with elites “suppressing merit competition and mobility, ensuring that status would be inherited” and resulting in “scientific stagnation.”
Nota - Posizione 139
x IPOTESI BRIN SUL SILENZIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 143
Today, in contrast, rates of innovation are high,
Nota - Posizione 144
BRIN VALE X IL PASSATO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 144
This change is called the “industrial revolution,” and it was indeed a good thing.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 148
new networks of experts talking.)
Nota - Posizione 148
IPOTESI CAUSA RIV
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 149
While Brin sees inequality as the main obstacle to innovation, in fact today inequality promotes innovation in important ways.
Nota - Posizione 149
x DISEGUAGL E INNOVAZ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 150
most innovation today happens within for-profit firms, and private for-profit firms put a lot more effort into innovation than do public for-profit firms. Compared to publicly traded firms, privately owned firms invest a 2.5 times larger fraction of their assets, and are 3.5 times more responsive to changes in investment opportunities. Yet private firms cannot exist without great wealth concentration; they are usually owned by fewer than three shareholders, and 83% are managed by the controlling shareholder (Asker et. al. 2011).
Nota - Posizione 154
c PRIVATO E CONCENTRAZ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 155
modern world doesn’t actually seem to have much less inheritance of wealth
Nota - Posizione 155
EREDITÀ: INNOVATIVI IL DINAMISMO SOCIALE NN CONTA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 156
The detailed work of Greg Clark finds very similar degrees of long-term inheritance around the world today and across history. Specifically Clark finds that the intergenerational correlation of social status remains in the range of 0.7 to 0.8 across all these societies: medieval England, modern England, pre-industrial Sweden, modern Sweden, the United States, Quing and Communist China, Meiji and modern Japan, and Chile (Clark 2014).
Nota - Posizione 160
c CLSRCK
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 160
My stronger criticism is that the world before the industrial revolution did innovate.
Nota - Posizione 162
X SI INNOVAVA ANCHE PRIMA!
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 164
During the forager era, the number of foragers doubled about every quarter million years. During the farming era the number of farmers doubled about every thousand years. And during our industry era our economy has doubled about every fifteen years (Hanson 2000). In all three eras, growth was primarily caused by innovation.
Nota - Posizione 168
x POPOL E INNOVAZIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 173
It is even plausible for a civilization to reach very advanced levels while growing at the much slower forager rate.
Nota - Posizione 174
x TEMPI COSMOLOGICI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 176
aliens tending to fall into cultures and institutions that discourage innovation is just not by itself a plausible explanation for the “great silence”
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 179
Perhaps one could have more success if one combined this slow-growth hypothesis with another hypothesis about very short time windows in which civilizations had to grow before something killed them off.
Nota - Posizione 180
x ALTERNATIVA DEL FILTRO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 181
Adapted Aliens
Nota - Posizione 181
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 202
Barkow seems to assume that alien styles are largely determined by the specific biological environments
Nota - Posizione 202
x COME SARSNNO GLI SIENI?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 203
far less sense for aliens who are a million or a billion years more advanced– far more likely timescales.
Nota - Posizione 204
x SCALE TEMPORALI E ABOLIZIONE EFFETTI EVOLUT
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 205
aliens selected far more by their final environment than their initial environment.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 206
some plausible forecasts
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 209
physics and basic physical resources are the same across the universe,
Nota - Posizione 210
HANNO LIVELLATO TUTTO IN MODO ARTIF
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 210
advanced aliens are physically similar across the universe,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 211
sexual reproduction is quite unlikely to last.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 213
advanced aliens should similarly design themselves
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 217
Such vivid examples may not be “art,” but neither also are they simply functional.
Nota - Posizione 217
CORPI COME ARTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 218
very old aliens should be accustomed to very low levels of growth and innovation. After all, the rates familiar to us just can’t be sustained for millions and billions of years.
Nota - Posizione 219
x CRESCITA E INNOVAZIONE SCARSA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 224
very advanced aliens should not be either generically friendly or generically hostile to outsiders. Instead they should be very good at making their friendship or hostility appropriately context-dependent. That is, aliens should be very good at figuring out when and in what precise way being friendly or hostile will best achieve their ends.
Nota - Posizione 226
x VIOLENZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 228
what exactly could humans eventually do to help or hurt them?
Nota - Posizione 228
LA DOMANDA DELL ALIENO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 231
advanced aliens will be very patient, but also very selfish
Nota - Posizione 231
L EGOISMO E PRUDENZA. VIRTÙ EVOLUTIVO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 236
anything less than complete control of evolution would not end evolution; it would instead create a new environment for adaptation.
Nota - Posizione 237
x L EVOLUZIONE NN SI ABOLISCE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 242
Selection Is Coming
Nota - Posizione 242
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 281
Advanced technology means that a species need no longer be selected by environmental pressures

lunedì 10 ottobre 2016

Are We Alone in the Universe? Chris Impe

Notebook per
Are We Alone in the Universe?
Chris Impey
Citation (APA): Impey, C. (2016). Are We Alone in the Universe? [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Are We Alone in the Universe? By Chris Impey
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 5
Suppose we woke up one morning to learn that scientists had made contact with an extraterrestrial
Nota - Posizione 5
IPOTESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 6
What would that change?
Nota - Posizione 6
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 7
we would know that we were not necessarily the pinnacle of creation,
Nota - Posizione 8
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11
Astronomers are sanguine that life beyond Earth will be detected.
Nota - Posizione 11
CERTEZZA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 12
within the next decade.
Nota - Posizione 12
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 12
The universe is highly habitable. The major biogenic elements— carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus— are routinely created within stars and then ejected into interstellar space, where they become part of the next generation of stars and planets.
Nota - Posizione 14
ABITABILE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 16
Models suggest that biochemistry could have begun within a billion years of the Big Bang. This means natural selection, or something like it, could have been operating for three times longer than the age of the Earth.
Nota - Posizione 17
PIÙ TEMPO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 18
A second reason scientists are bullish about the prospects of life elsewhere is the fact that simple cells formed from primitive molecular ingredients in the first 10 percent of the history of this planet.
Nota - Posizione 19
INOZIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 23
We anticipate roughly a hundred million habitable worlds in the galaxy,
Nota - Posizione 23
NUMERI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 24
This assumes a conservative definition of habitability based on availability of liquid water.
Nota - Posizione 25
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25
The principal of mediocrity implies that the full census of habitable worlds among 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe is ten billion billion.
Nota - Posizione 26
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 28
Mars was habitable
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
Taking the next step— proving biology not just habitability— will be difficult.
Nota - Posizione 31
x ABITABILITÁ E BIOLOGIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 34
The archetypal biomarker is oxygen since it was created on Earth by microbes and in the absence of life it would disappear in less than ten million years.
Nota - Posizione 35
OSSOGENO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 36
The discovery would generate front page headlines and reverberate around the scientific community for some time.
Nota - Posizione 37
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 40
We have no idea how often life starts given a habitable environment, no idea how often biology develops something we would recognize as intelligence, no idea how often advanced organisms harness technology, and no idea of the longevity of creatures with these advanced capabilities.
Nota - Posizione 41
PUNTO MORTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 42
The tools used to communicate with putative aliens— radio telescopes and powerful lasers— are likely to be fleeting technologies, and they can’t be wielded by the intelligent creatures who share our planet but who lack opposable thumbs, like orcas and cephalopods.
Nota - Posizione 44
STRUMENTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 44
Undaunted, SETI researchers
Nota - Posizione 45
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 46
after six decades of the “Great Silence.”
Nota - Posizione 46
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 48
If the silence persists, they contend, it really will mean we’re operationally alone,
Nota - Posizione 48
ALONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 49
There are many reasons why advanced civilizations might exist without us being aware of them. To communicate requires motivation and means.
Nota - Posizione 50
MOTIVAZIONE E MEZZI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 51
we can’t talk to animals that share 99% of our DNA.
Nota - Posizione 51
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 53
Aliens might be to us as we are to bacteria.
Nota - Posizione 53
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 55
we should move beyond strategies based on communication and “contact” and look for aliens by their artifacts.
Nota - Posizione 55
OLTRE IL CONTATTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 55
Freeman Dyson
Nota - Posizione 55
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 57
They might become post-biological, suggesting that we should look for astro-engineering on an interstellar or even a galactic scale.
Nota - Posizione 58
POSTBIOLOGICAL
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 58
SETI might be doomed to fail because it’s unduly timid.
Nota - Posizione 58
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 84
there is a “timing argument” made that since we have only just gained the capacity to travel and communicate in space, any civilization we discover or encounter will likely be substantially more advanced.
Nota - Posizione 85
CIVILTÀ AVANZATE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 93
Another thread of the discussion alluded not to life elsewhere, but to life on Earth, and some skepticism was expressed that the remarkable complexity of a biological organism could emerge naturally from primitive chemical components. This perspective leads into arguments based on design and teleology.
Nota - Posizione 95
DISEGNO

sabato 9 aprile 2016

10 NEUROSCIENZE ROBOT MARZIANI DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne

10 NEUROSCIENZE ANIMALI ROBOT MARZIANI E DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne darwinnonbasta unascienzadellanima? correlazionieleggi animaanimale ilmisterodellamutazione animasenzavantaggievolutivi lariduzioneimpossibile lascienzaimpossibile

10.Read more at location 2336
Note: 10@@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit
In this chapter I come to the questions of when the soul begins to exist in the individual humanRead more at location 2337
Note: QUANDO NASCE? Edit
the answers to these questions depend in part on the answers to detailed questions of physiology which I shall not attempt to provide, I hope to show what kind of physiological information is relevantRead more at location 2339
Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit
what is it for a man to have a soul when he is not having any conscious episodes (e.g. during some periods of deep sleep).Read more at location 2340
Note: ANIMA SENZA COSCIENZA Edit
The Existence of Consciousness Read more at location 2343
Note: TITOLO Edit
The evidence available to others that some man is currently conscious will, we saw in earlier chapters, be his testimony and certain patterns of bodily behaviour which manifest his conscious life (e.g. screaming when in pain).Read more at location 2348
Note: SOLIPSISMO Edit
This direct evidence of consciousness is found to be correlated with physiological phenomena.Read more at location 2353
Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit
the electrical rhythm of a man's brain, his EEG, is found to have a certain pattern.Read more at location 2353
evidence of the connection of EEG rhythm with consciousness, means that (since a man's own apparent memory of whether he was at some time conscious or not can err, like all memory) it can be used to correct apparent memory-e.g. if a man woken up from what by EEG rhythm evidence is deep dreamless sleep claims that he was woken from a long dream, the EEG evidence acts at least to cast doubt on his claimRead more at location 2356
Note: LA CORREZIONE Edit
The same goes for the evidence of rapid eye movements during sleep (REMs) showing that a man is dreaming. Read more at location 2361
there are periods of deep sleep in which a man is not conscious at all.Read more at location 2362
Note: SONNO PROFONDO Edit
The absence of consciousness for those periods is clearly dependent on the state of the brain, and not vice versa. A man can be made unconscious-by drugs, being knocked out, etc.-or woken up. The functioning of the soul depends on the correct functioning of the brain.Read more at location 2364
Note: NESSO Edit
there is no conscious life before some point between conception and birth. No one can recall conscious episodes immediately after conception, there are no bodily movements evidential of sensations, thoughts, or purposings, and there is no brain to evince the electrical patterns characteristic of consciousness.Read more at location 2366
Note: NASCITA Edit
The evidence suggests that consciousness originates when the foetus has a brain with the kind of electrical rhythms characteristicRead more at location 2368
Note: IL CERVELLO DEL FETO Edit
The Existence of the Soul Read more at location 2369
Note: TITOLO Edit
What I have argued so far is that without a functioning brain, the soul will not function (i.e. have conscious episodes)-not that it will not exist.Read more at location 2369
Note: FUNZIONARE ED ESISTERE Edit
The distinction between existence and functioning is clear enough in the case of a material substance, which has some sort of life (e.g. a plant) or some sort of working (e.g. a machine). The substance continues to exist so long as the matter of which it is made continues to existRead more at location 2371
Note: ESISTE LA MATERIA ESISTE LA COSA Edit
But it functions only so long as normal life-processes or machine-use continue.Read more at location 2373
The clock exists, when it no longer tells the time, so long as the parts remain joined in roughly the normal way;Read more at location 2373
Note: OROLOGIO Edit
a dead tree is still a tree,Read more at location 2374
The soul functions while it is the subject of conscious episodes-while it has sensations or thoughts or purposes. But is it still there when the man is asleep, having no conscious episodes?Read more at location 2375
Note: IL CASO DELL ANIMA Edit
In saying that some such person still exists, we mean, I suggest, that the sleeping body will again by normal processes give rise to a conscious life,Read more at location 2378
Note: IL PROCESSO NORMALE DI CHI DORME: SVEGLIARSI. ASSENZA DI INTERFERENZE Edit
although persons only exist while they are conscious, the bodies which they previously owned continue to exist during the periods of unconsciousnessRead more at location 2380
that would be a very unnatural way to talk, largely because it has the consequence that certain substances (persons) are continually popping in and out of existence.Read more at location 2381
Note: DENTRO E FUORI DALL ESISTENZA Edit
it seems a less cumbersome way to describe the cited fact to say that persons exist while not conscious,Read more at location 2383
Note: PIÙ SEMPLICE Edit
This will have the consequence that persons normally have only one beginning of existence during their life on Earth. Read more at location 2384
With this usage, a soul exists while its owner exists; and a soul will normally have only one beginning of existence during a man's life on Earth.Read more at location 2390
But the boundaries of this usage are not as clear as they look. It all depends on what we understand by 'normal' bodily processesRead more at location 2391
Note: I CONFINI DELL ESISTENZA Edit
If a drowned body of a person can be revived by artificial respiration, that person certainly exists before the respiration is given.Read more at location 2392
Note: RESPIRAZIONE ARTIFICIALE Edit
But what about the man in a coma for reviving whom there are no techniques available to doctors at that place and time, though there will be such techniques usable a few years later?Read more at location 2393
Note: COMA IRREVERSIBILE Edit
If he recovers, have 'normal processes' made his soul function again'?Read more at location 2395
Note: L ANIMA DEI COMATOSI Edit
we must, I think, develop the account which I have given so far by giving fairly arbitrary stipulative definitions of 'normal' bodily processes and 'available' techniques.Read more at location 2399
Note: NORMALE PROCESSO CORPOREO Edit
If our talk of persons existing is not to depart too wildly from ordinary usage, we must deny that it is sufficient for the existence of a man merely that it is logically possible that he be brought to life again; for in that case all dead men would continue to exist (as a mere logical consequence of once having existed).Read more at location 2400
Note: LA POSSIBILITÀ LOGICA Edit
I suggest that we understand in this context by a bodily process being 'normal', that it will yield its outcome with a high degree of predictability given normal nutrition, respiration, etc.,Read more at location 2403
Note: NORMALE: ALTAMENTE PROBABILE Edit
and by a technique being 'available', that it is available to doctors during that period of history within a region of the size of the average county.Read more at location 2404
Note: TECNICA DISPONIBILE Edit
My preferred definition does allow that it sometimes happens that a person (and so his soul) ceases to exist and then by an unexpected accident comes to exist again.Read more at location 2408
Note: REVENANTS Edit
So, given that the soul functions first about twenty weeks after conception, when does it come into existence? There exist normal bodily processes by which the fertilized egg develops into a foetus with a brain after twenty weeks which gives rise to a functioning soul. If the soul exists just because normal bodily processes will bring it one day to function, it surely therefore exists, once the egg is fertilized, at conception.'Read more at location 2411
Note: EMBRIONE DI 20 SETTIMANE Edit
Once again it seems an arbitrary matter when we say that the soul begins to exist, requiring a further stipulation as to how 'normal bodily processes' are to he understood.Read more at location 2415
Animal Souls Read more at location 2418
Note: TITOLO. ANIMALI Edit
the grounds for attributing a mental life of sensation, thought, purpose, desire, and belief to other men are provided by the pattern of their public behaviour, including above all what they say.Read more at location 2418
Note: ANIMA E COMPORTAMENTO PUBBLICO Edit
There are, as we noted there, similar grounds for attributing a mental life characterized by these elements to the higher animals, especially mammals.Read more at location 2419
animals sometimes show the facial signs which humans show when struck by thought;Read more at location 2429
But of course the most obvious difference between the higher animals and ourselves is that they do not have a structured language;Read more at location 2432
Note: IL LINGUAGGIO Edit
this means that any conclusions we reach about their mental lives must he much more tentative than any conclusions we may reach about the mental lives of other men. Read more at location 2435
Note: TENTATIVE Edit
An organism can have sensations without having mental events of other kinds; and my suspicion is that the conscious life of the first conscious animals was purely sensory,Read more at location 2439
Note: SENSAZIONI. ANIMA SENSITIVA Edit
Since, as I shall argue, creatures without language cannot have moral concepts, desire alone must move such creatures to action.Read more at location 2443
Note: LINGUAGGIO ED ETICA Edit
beliefs must have been present in all purposing animals. Sooner or later animals must have formulated their beliefs to themselves in thought.Read more at location 2445
Note: CREDENZA Edit
Now the claim which I made in Chapter 8 about the need to describe humans as composed of body and soul applies to conscious animals as well.Read more at location 2451
Note: DUALISMO VERSO GLI ANIMALI Edit
If you divide my cat's brain and transplant the two halves into empty cat skulls and the transplants take, there is a truth about which subsequent cat is my cat which is not necessarily revealed by knowledge of what has happened to the parts of my cat's body. Read more at location 2453
Note: TRAPIANTI AI GATTI Edit
Talk about animal souls as well as human souls was normal in Greek philosophy and Christian medieval thought.Read more at location 2455
Note: GRECIA E MEDIOEVO Edit
The idea of a very sharp division between animals who had no souls, and men who had souls, arrived in the seventeenth century with Descartes and his strange view that animals were unconscious automata.Read more at location 2456
Note: CARTESIO E L ANIMALE ROBOT Edit
The difference between animals and men, as the medievals well recognised, was not that men had a mental life and so souls, and animals did not; but that man had a special kind of mental life (mental capacities which went beyond those of animals) and so a special kind of soul. The medievals called this soul the rational or intellectual soul, as opposed to the animal or sensitive soul.' Read more at location 2457
Note: ANIMA RAZIONALE E SENSITIVA Edit
Scientific Explanation of Animal Evolution Read more at location 2459
Note: TITOLO: EVOLUZIONE DELL ANIMA Edit
How far can science explain the evolution of these forms of consciousness'? Read more at location 2462
Note: SCIENZA E COSCIENZA Edit
Most writers who discuss the relation of mind and body and consider the possibility of scientific explanation in this field normally make an assumption of one-many simultaneous mind-brain correlation.Read more at location 2462
Note: LA CORRELAZIONE MENTE CERVELLO Edit
the assumption of one-many correlation is an assumption for which no one has ever produced any detailed evidence.Read more at location 2468
Note: EVIDENZA Edit
The assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation would follow from the assumptions that every event has a cause, and that all mental events are caused exclusively and instantaneously by brain-events.Read more at location 2468
Note: ASSUNTO DELLA CAUSA MATERIALE Edit
I shall make the assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation for humans, animals, and any other conscious beings there may be; and show that even with it, central theses of mine about the structure and causal efficacy, and yet ultimate inexplicability, of the soul still follow.Read more at location 2470
Note: LA COSCIENZA RESTA CMQ INSPIEGATA DALLA SCIENZA Edit
Why did no organisms develop with four wheels made of skin and bone, or organisms which eat coal, or organisms with built-in catapults to fire stones?Read more at location 2487
Note: UNA CRITICA ALL EVOLUZIONISMO Edit
explanation of why we have the animals we do lies not in natural selection but in the chemical properties of genetic material which make it more prone to throw up certain variants than others. The major task of explaining why organisms have the physical characteristics they do lies no longer with the theorist of natural selection but with the biochemist. Read more at location 2492
Note: CASO O BIOCHIMICA? IL MISTERO DELLA MUTAZIONE Edit
what physics and chemistry could not possibly explain is why the brain-events to which the impinging light gives rise, in turn give rise to sensations of blueness (as opposed to redness), a high noise rather than a low noise, this sort of smell rather than that sort of smell-why sodium chloride tastes salty, and roses look pink. And the reason why physics and chemistry could not explain these things is that pink looks, high noises, and salty tastes are not the sort of thing physics and chemistry deal in.Read more at location 2498
Note: COSA NN SPIEGHERÀ MAI LO SCIENTISMO Edit
mental properties are different properties from physical properties; and even if there is one-many correlation between mental events and brain-events, physics and chemistry cannot explain why there are these correlations rather than those correlations,Read more at location 2501
But could not physics and chemistry be enlarged so as to become a super-science dealing with both physical and mental properties,Read more at location 2503
Note: UNA NUOVA FISICA? Edit
I do not think so, for the following reason.Read more at location 2504
You explain why the planet today is in this position by stating where it and other heavenly bodies were last month (the initial conditions) and how it follows from Newton's laws of motionRead more at location 2505
Note: LA SPIEGA SCIENTIFICA Edit
To provide a scientific explanation you need laws of nature.Read more at location 2507
Note: LEGGE DI NATURA Edit
we need to show not merely that the generalization holds universally, but that it fits neatly into a scientific theory which is a simple theory with few simple purported laws,Read more at location 2514
The theory with four such simple laws was able to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of bodies of very different kinds in very different circumstances-theRead more at location 2521
Note: GRAVITÀ Edit
Now a scientist, I have assumed, could compile a very, very long list of the correlations between brain-events and sensations,Read more at location 2525
Note: IL CATALOGO DELLE CORRELAZIONI Edit
But to explain those correlations we need by our principles to establish a much smaller set of purported laws, from which it follows that this kind of brain-event has to be correlated with a red sensation, that one with a blue sensation;Read more at location 2530
Note: CATALOGO E NN PRINCIPI Edit
The purported laws would need to fit together into a theory from which we could derive new correlations (e.g. predict some totally new sensation to which some hitherto unexemplified brain-state would give rise).Read more at location 2532
Note: PREDIZIONE DI NUOVE CORRELAZIONI? Edit
Because you have no explanation of why all ravens are black, you may reasonably suspect that tomorrow someone will find a white raven.Read more at location 2536
Note: SPIEGARE I CORVI NERI Edit
The list of correlations is like a list of sentences of a foreign language which under certain circumstances translate sentencesRead more at location 2537
Note: IMPARARE UNA LINGUA. LISTA E REGOLE Edit
In the absence of a grammar and dictionary you do not know when those translations will cease to be accurateRead more at location 2538
But why should not the scientist devise a theory showing the kinds of correlation discussed to be natural ones'?Read more at location 2540
Note: AVREMO MAI UNA GRAMMATICA? Edit
Although it is theoretically possible that a scientific theory of this kind should be created, still the creation of such a theory does not look a very likely prospect.Read more at location 2541
Note: POSSIBILE MA IMPROBABILE. FINE DEL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit
Brain-events are such different things qualitatively from pains, smells, and tastesRead more at location 2542
Note: DIFFERENZA CHE APPARE QUALITATIVA Edit
There is a crucial difference between the two cases. All other integrations into a super-science, of sciences dealing with entities and properties apparently qualitatively very distinct, were achieved by saying that really some of those entities and properties were not as they appeared to be; by making a distinction between the underlying (not immediately observable) entities and properties and the phenomenal properties to which they gave rise.Read more at location 2553
Note: DIFFERENZE CON LE GRANDI INTEGRAZIONI DEL PASSATO. Edit
All `reduction' of one science to another dealing with apparently very disparate properties has been achieved by this device of denying that the apparent properties (i.e. the `secondary qualities' of colour, heat, sound, taste, etc.) with which one science dealt belonged to the physical world at all.Read more at location 2559
Note: RIDUZIONE DEL CALDO DEL SUONO... A FENOMENI MOLECOLARI. PER LA COSCIENZA SI NEGHEREBBE IL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit
But then, when you come to face the problem of the sensations themselves, you cannot do this. If you are to explain the sensations themselves, you cannot distinguish between them and their underlying causes and only explain the latter.Read more at location 2561
Note: IL PROBLEMA: SE DEVI SPIEGARE LE SENSAZIONI NN PUOI NEGARE CHE SIANO SENSAZIONI X RIDURLE A MOLECOLE Edit
can natural selection explain why animals with the capacity to have sensations survived? What evolutionary advantage does the capacity to have sensations give to a creature?Read more at location 2566
Note: PERCHÈ AVERE SENSAZIONI DOVREBBE ESSERE UN VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO? NON BASTA UN AUTOMA? Edit
If epiphenomenalism were true, there would be no evolutionary advantage in having sensations.Read more at location 2567
Note: DARWIN NN SPIEGA GLI EPIFENOMENI Edit
having of sensations would never make any difference to the animal's behaviour.Read more at location 2568
this system of ours in which sensations are causally intermediate between stimulus and response will clearly have no evolutionary advantage over a mechanism which produces the same behavioural modifications without going through sensations to produce them.Read more at location 2570
Note: SENSAZIONE: UN INTERMEDIARIO INUTILE. RAGIONE AGLI ELIMINATIVISTI Edit
What advantage is there in the mental awareness as opposed to the unconscious disposition'?Read more at location 2585
Note: LA COSCIENZA NN DÀ VANTAGGI EVOLUTIVI QUINDI DARWIN NN SPIEGA LA SUA ESISTENZA Edit
So we have noted one crucial all-important question which is utterly beyond the powers of Darwinism or apparently science itself to answer-why do certain brain-events give rise to certain mental events-and one question on which there are possibilities for a Darwinian answer.Read more at location 2589
Note: OLTRE DARWIN Edit
Why is the brain connected via the optic nerve to the eye in such a way that the brain-event which gives rise to the belief that there is a table present is normally caused to occur when and only when there is a table present? The answer is evident-animals with beliefs are more likely to survive if their beliefs are largely true.Read more at location 2593
Note: IL VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO DELLA VERITÀ Edit
Many animals have a built-in mechanism for correcting in the light of experience any tendency to acquire false beliefsRead more at location 2598
So then, in summary, the evolution of the mental life of animalsRead more at location 2603
Note: SOMMARIO Edit
is a matter of (1) there existing certain physical/mental connectionsRead more at location 2604
(2) animals with brains, whose states are connected to mental states, having survival value; (3) evolution selecting animals whose brains are `wired in' to their bodies in certain ways.Read more at location 2604
Darwinian mechanisms can explain quite a lot of (3), and possibly some of (2); but neither Darwinism nor any other science has much prospect of explaining (1).Read more at location 2605
The gradual evolution of the animal soul is a mystery, likely ever to lie beyond the capacity of science to explain.Read more at location 2609
Note: CONCLUSIONE Edit
We have good reason to suppose that they do have souls which operate under certain physical conditions,Read more at location 2615
Note: ALTERNATIVA Edit
There may be some natural law concerning when and how soul and body interact, but my argument suggests that there is not (because our present evidence would count against any suggested law) and in consequence scientists are unlikely to find one.Read more at location 2616
Note: ASSENZA DI LEGGI. LIBERTÀ DELL UOMO Edit
some brain keeps some soul functioning; but, lacking a theory of how this happens, we do not know how much of that brain is needed for that soulRead more at location 2623
Note: QUANTO CERVELLO CI SERVE? Edit
Martians, Robots, and Synthesized Animals Read more at location 2626
Note: TITOLO. MARZIANI E ROBOT Edit
what of organisms who might be found on other planets, made of very different kinds of molecule from animals on this planet (let us call them `Martians'); and what of organisms which are brought into being, not by normal sexual processes, but are put together in a laboratory on this Earth, made either of similar molecules and similar construction to animals (let us call them `synthesized animals') or of very different molecules and construction (let us call them `robots')?Read more at location 2627
The difference of construction of robots and Martians from ourselves, means that we no longer have the crucial grounds for attributing consciousnessRead more at location 2630
Note: DIFFIDENZA Edit
If they have a mental life like ours, we must obviously treat them differently from the way in which we treat machines.Read more at location 2639
synthesized animals, having considerable similarity of brain to ourselves, are justifiably believed to have souls. There is no reason to suppose that souls will come into existence only through the normal sexual processes.Read more at location 2643
Note: EMULATORI