51 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
5750 | Consistency is modal, saying propositions are consistent if they could be true together [Melia] |
5737 | Predicate logic has connectives, quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names and brackets [Melia] |
5744 | First-order predicate calculus is extensional logic, but quantified modal logic is intensional (hence dubious) [Melia] |
5740 | Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia] |
5741 | If every model that makes premises true also makes conclusion true, the argument is valid [Melia] |
5735 | Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact [Melia] |
5736 | No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly [Melia] |
5746 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is contentious for qualities, and trivial for non-qualities [Melia] |
5738 | We may be sure that P is necessary, but is it necessarily necessary? [Melia] |
5732 | 'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia] |
5739 | Sometimes we want to specify in what ways a thing is possible [Melia] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
5734 | Possible worlds make it possible to define necessity and counterfactuals without new primitives [Melia] |
5742 | In possible worlds semantics the modal operators are treated as quantifiers [Melia] |
5743 | If possible worlds semantics is not realist about possible worlds, logic becomes merely formal [Melia] |
5749 | Possible worlds could be real as mathematics, propositions, properties, or like books [Melia] |
5751 | The truth of propositions at possible worlds are implied by the world, just as in books [Melia] |
5748 | We accept unverifiable propositions because of simplicity, utility, explanation and plausibility [Melia] |
20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |