Should I check my conceit if I'm reading A Treatise On The Human Nature and the first parts just gives me the feel that I'm reading a cutesy description about the nature of thoughts and impressions, descriptions that have neither aesthetic nor practical value, and adding nothing to philosophy? Please tell me it was at least groundbreaking 250 years ago.
The only mildly impressive thing is that occasionally he describes very well how neural networks function while obviously having no knowledge of them(shit was discovered like 200 years later).
Should I drudge on with the book? At the end of part 2 currently.
Why don't you read the aesthetic and practical parts rather than the epistemological parts?
Modern philosophy at this time is still struggling with the Cartesian problem of how we know. That's the bulk of all the major works until Heidegger.
>The only mildly impressive thing is that occasionally he describes very well how neural networks function while obviously having no knowledge of them
I'm not sure this is your bag, family
>>7698852
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_neural_network#Philosophical_issues
I'm talking about how the neurons in our brain work(as far as we know right now) to create connections between different concepts and the sensations of that. I'm not an expert of this shit but I've read some books about the science of perception that touched on the stuff and it was funny how similar his descriptions were.
Just read on you idiot; he makes his argument for phenomenalism later on. And neural networks were not "discovered"--it's a mere mathematical model that describes whatever Hume had described using plain English.
>while obviously having no knowledge of them(shit was discovered like 200 years later).
You mean like those folks that had no knowledge of them until they had knowledge of them? Logic of steel.
>>7698877
>it was funny how similar his descriptions were.
This is because a large part of contemporary cognitive science is influenced by Hume and also by Kant (cogsci is literally buying Kant's representationalism (controversial in philosophy of mind/perception), which could end up being wrong after all).
>>7698880
>You mean like those folks that had no knowledge of them until they had knowledge of them?
"ahead of one's time"
-(idiomatic) In advance of concurrent commonly accepted ideas; showing characteristics of changes yet to be; present in one's work before later advances in the field.
>>7698905
You're misreading me in a funny way. By 'those folks' I was merely referring to 'the cool scientists in white lab-coats that "discovered" neural networks', i.e. what OP actually thinks.
Reread "The only mildly impressive thing is that occasionally he describes very well how neural networks function while obviously having no knowledge of them(shit was discovered like 200 years later)." again and tell me it doesn't sound retarded to see it in this way.
