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Donald Davidson: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Donald Davidson, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• A bolt of lightning creates your perfect physical copy — does it mean anything you say?

  Philosopher Donald Davidson imagined lightning striking a swamp and, by sheer chance, rearranging molecules into an exact physical duplicate of himself — same brain, same movements…

  — Donald Davidson, Knowing One's Own Mind

• The mind can be entirely physical while still following no fixed physical laws of its own

  Donald Davidson argued in 1970 that every mental event is also a physical event, with no separate soul-stuff involved. But he insisted there are no strict psychophysical laws linki…

  — Donald Davidson, Mental Events

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