Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Mind/Archives

n00b
Just following up on Kripkenstein's invite to join the project. I've been only sporadically active on Wikipedia lately, and am taking my first philosophy of mind class this semester, but I'll try to put in as much as I can. 138.16.37.249 03:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It'd be best if you logged in and got a userpage in case there is any need for interminable debates or discussion and so on. (--Lacatosias 08:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Links with [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy]
I'm taking the liberty of adding the banner to each of the sub-projects - hope this is OK with you. No Wiki imperialism is intended, this is not a take-over bid, nor an invasion; just a way to link the projects together. Banno 21:02, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Physicalism page: attention needed
Could people take a look at the discussion I've started on what to do with the page on Physicalism? Thomas Ash 11:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Philosophy of mind main article
Hello people. I'd like to propose a task for anyone who has a good grasp of German language and some time on their hands. I've noticed that the German article Philosophie des Geistes is on a higher level of excelency than our English article (whose lenght is due to an ugly listing of all philosophy of mind-related people). So if anyone is willing, translating good sections from the German article would be interesting. Porcher 19:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it might indeed be helpful (I can't see why it would be harmful at any rate) but I know nothing of German. I will, however, look over the article and see what I ideas I can borrow in terms of formatting and I will definitely cut out most, if not all, of the section containing lists of philosophers of mind (this should be ib either a seperate article of lists or perhaps listed on this page). Finally, if nothing else, the article can be listed in pages for translation into English in odrer to get the maximum attention from experienced German-to-English translators. --Lacatosias 08:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. as I'm extremely busy just at the moment, I will just list it on artciles needing attention and on the translation page for the time being.--Lacatosias 08:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I've listed it at German-English_translation_requests the page is exteremely busy, however, and it might be a good idea for others who support this propoal to sign under the section supported so as to focus more attention on it.--Lacatosias 09:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * If the German article is a Features Artcile (it says somethihng like "excellent article has been identified" on the bottom so I suspest that's the same thing) than it can be listed on the top of the talk page for the philosophy of mind article as wll. In any case, I've gotten some excellent clues on the perfects structure to to completely overhaul the current version. But now I have to get off. If your in the US or thereabouts, I'm about 6 to 9 hours ahead of you. So anyone who wants to contact meu should leave a message on my talk page or here...--Lacatosias 19:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

We could create a Portal:Mind and Brain instead of using lists in articles. If we adopt the html-code of the german de:Portal:Geist und Gehirn (Geist = mind, Gehirn = brain), it shouldn't be too much work. I would like to help you with the translation. --Davidlud 12:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I have been considering the excellent idea of creating a portal along the lines of the German one. I ran into it myself after looking around for some ideas on how to improve this page. I wasn't sure how much effort this would take, though, in terms of getting people who are knowledgeble about other fields like neuroscience, linguistics, etc.. involved. But I would defintily support the idea. In fact, I will take a closer look at the HTML (though I'm not very good at it) and start working on it right away. Your help in translation would be greatly appeciated David. I was planning on working on some other things, but I think this idea is valuable enough that I can set aside substantial time for it. It would improve the overall philosophy department, as it were, and also the overall Wikipedia. --Lacatosias 12:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, that was a great deal easier than I expected, since most of the real work had already been done for us. (But the portal looks pretty decent. Hopefully, people will find it useful. --Lacatosias 14:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks really good! Good thinking, guys. Porcher 17:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration seems to be lacking
Collaboration seems to be lacking thoughout the whole Philosophy project. I don't know where to begin to deal with this probem--Lacatosias 19:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * That's true. It seems like a lot of work to a few people. -- Kripkenstein 15:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * ah, don't take my comments too literally. I often use this technique of whining to "spronare" (or push people, as we say in Italian) into putting more effort into things. But the real problem, if you want my honest opinion, seems to be that there are plenty of people but they are all spread out thinly, concentrating on one or two articles almost as if they own them. Everyone is off in their own world (including myslef!!) and there is no effort to focus on getting four or five really solid artciles. Insead there are two separet artciles, for example, on philosphy of mind and the mind-body problem. Someone will probably want to divide it up futher into the mind problem and the body problem eventually. Then we will have Dennett's mind, Jospeh LeDouxs' brain, etc, etc,.. It could be a misinterpreation because I'm relatively new to Wikipedia, but it seems like there's no real project in the Philosophy project but just a mishmash of overlapping and disjointed efforts. But, then, it might just be the nature of philosophy which is so wide-open and subjective (in the sense of opinionated) whereas the math and science artciles are just a matter of describing objective facts. Anyway, I'm rambling off.--Lacatosias 15:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Need for review and cleanup
I just did a rewrite of the Intentional stance article and would like feedback. Be merciless. Alienus 18:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah hah! I, at any rate, can't look at it right now. It's getting late over here and it's time to get off this damned machine. Goodnight.--Lacatosias 18:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It can wait a day. Granted, your willingness to sleep without doing this work is a clear indication of your complete and utter lack of dedication, so I must judge you unfavorably. Maybe I could compare you to Hitler or something; that's a popular way to knock people around here. :-) Alienus 18:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Calling fellow members
As some of you may have noticed, I have replaced the previous version of the artcile philosphy of mind with a new version. I then delted the now-redundant article mind-body problem and redirected it to philosophy of mind. Iìm beginning to get some negative feedback from...certain quaters. I would appreciate it if you folks could back me up on this.--Lacatosias 17:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Vote
There is an important voting process under way on the philosophy of mind talk page. Please vote. --Lacatosias 18:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Changes on Consciousness and Mind
Some of you who have an interest in the subject may wish to take a look at the recent history of changes to consciousness and Mind. I'll let you come to your own conclusions about what's necessary. Alienus 07:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Simplify, simplify simplify
I think I've figured out the real problem: people have got to stop trying to show off how much they (think they) know and start to focus on communicating philosophy to the lay people in a way that appeals to them. We've got to invent a new genre: popular philosophy (analogous to popular science). Let's face it, folks: the vast majority of philosophical writing is bad in some sense (continental philosophy is too often unintelligible and analytic philosophy is too often dessicatingly boring). This is a very difficult challenge. The Stanford Encylopedia, for example, is BORING AS HELL to most of the people that we're writing for. --Lacatosias 18:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Amen, brother. Some people are trying to do way too much in very general articles.  Keeping it general means keeping it extremely basic and easy to follow.  (If you're concerned about your health, I recommend staying away from the articles on basic logical operators; most of them were written by mathematics students.)
 * On a semi-related note, have you seen the value theory/goodness and value theory mess?
 * Isn't there a philosophy wiki somewhere that we could just GFDL-steal from? I know I've seen some philosophers mentioning one or another in blogs. KSchutte 23:19, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Value theory AND goodness and value theory!! I'm already confused. The first article discusses value theory (defined basically as the theory of everything in the universe that could possibly have any kind of value whatsoever to someone) and the second says that this will be discussed ALONG WITH all things which are considered goods (these are to be carefully distinguished obviously??). OHHH BOYYYYYY!! Logic articles: they seem to have ALL been written by mathematicians. Result: they tend to be more accurate and more professional-looking than most philosophy articles, but they are completely inaccessible and seem to be dealing with topics extraneous to philosophy. Well, we can only do the best we can. Anything more general and vague than philosophy of mind, such as consciousness, mind, philosophy and even epistemology seem almost hopeless since everyone absolutley must get their own two opinionated paragraphs in (see recent edits to consciousness) or else there will be endless edit wars, private email spamming and so on. Most people would insist on being paid for such work. However, there are some excellent artciles and some outstanding contributors. As far as copying GFDL material: I'm sure you're kidding. That would defeat  the whole purpose and eliminate the challenge!! --Lacatosias 07:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I would never dream of getting "consciousness" to reach encyclopedic quality. Those quacks even find their way into serious academic conferences like those held by the ASSC.  That article won't be sane until someone unequivocally solves the hard problem and all the other problems.  Until then, meditation and quantum properties will continue to assert their relevance (beyond all reason). KSchutte 19:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, this indeed true. Unfortunately, the situation has not been helped by the externations of mystical physicists on the inherent processes of unversal consciousness involved in quantum measuerment and so on. What the hell? --Lacatosias 08:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations fellows!!
We really brought the "neutral monism" article up to near-professional standards. I'm going to have it listed as an FA candidate!! Good work (D..--Lacatosias 10:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello lads!!
So who's working on what? Is anybody (beside myself) working on anything in philosophy of mind? Is this project still active or should I just shut it down?--Lacatosias 09:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on "scientific" dualism
There's an interesting debate/discussion going on over at talk:dualism (philosophy of mind that might interest some of the folks involved in the neuro, psych and philosophy of mind fields. I don't think  a few studies on near death experiecnce are relevant. Am I being too stringent and POV or what? SPEAK UP!!! Basically, I think it's all nonsense. But I would like to hear from others.--Lacatosias 08:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0
Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in offline releases of Wikipedia based on their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 1.0 (not yet open) and later versions. Hopefully it will also help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to your Philosophy/Religion WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 05:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Key articles?? Oh, that's easy enough for philosophy of mind, I should think. Here's what immediately comes to mind in no particular order(others may add or contest, as they think appropiate):
 * philosophy of mind
 * functionalism
 * physicalism
 * dualism (philosophy of mind)
 * type identity theory
 * eliminative materialism
 * multiple realizability
 * anomalous monism
 * property dualism
 * emergent materialism
 * Jerry Fodor
 * Hilary Putnam
 * Daniel Dennett
 * Donald Davidson
 * qualia
 * folk psychology
 * Thomas Nagel
 * intentionality
 * Descartes
 * epiphenomenalism
 * David Chalmers
 * consciousness
 * computational theory of mind
 * Ned Block
 * John Searle
 * Chinese room argument
 * neutral monism
 * supervenience
 * theory of mind
 * Jaegwon Kim

I'll stop here. Didn't realize how long this could go ,actually.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Many thanks - I'll add these into the table in the next few days. Please edit them there as you see fit.  Cheers, Walkerma 06:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I've placed these into this table, please update/assess as you wish. I put Philosophy of Mind as Top-Importance (being the project title), and all others as "High-Importance".  If others should be Top as well, please edit the table.  Many thanks for your help! Walkerma 04:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories
I compared the English Category:Philosophers of mind and the German de:Kategorie:Philosophie des Geistes (Vertreter). At the the German Wikipedia are some important historical philosophers like Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Spinoza... while the English Wikipedia categorized just contemporary philosophers as "Philosophers of mind". I'm not sure which is the better solution, what do you think? --Davidlud 20:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Probably no one had thought about it or something. Certainly Descartes, Leibniz, and so on should be in the category. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Template for article talk pages
Would someone from the project be able to make a new template for philosophy of mind articles? One with assessment fields would be great - I'm looking for something suitable for assessing qualia. Thanks, Richard001 02:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm....it looks much improved since the last time I saw it. Still needs a great deal more referencing and prosification of all those lists, etc.. Looks like B, B- category, IMO, on a quick glance.--Francesco Franco 17:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

How to become a member?
Hi I wish to become a member of this project. Could someone please tell me what I need to do? And is there a userbox for it? Thanks  Amit @  Talk   16:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Why in hell? No,just kidding. You just go ahead and edit phi articles. On the other side of this page, there is a template code for the userbox and so on. --Francesco Franco 17:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles
Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Contents subpages (not by me). This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * List of basic thinking-related topics

RfC on including personal blog in the article on intelligence
See Request for comment on the inclusion of McGrew's blog. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)