Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Reality is Not What it Seems' and 'Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement'

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27 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
The existence of tensed verbs shows that not all truths are necessary truths [Reid]
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 7. Ad Hominem
An ad hominem argument is good, if it is shown that the man's principles are inconsistent [Reid]
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 4. Paradoxes in Logic / a. Achilles paradox
Zeno assumes collecting an infinity of things makes an infinite thing [Rovelli]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / b. Events as primitive
Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 4. The Cogito
If someone denies that he is thinking when he is conscious of it, we can only laugh [Reid]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
The existence of ideas is no more obvious than the existence of external objects [Reid]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 4. Solipsism
We are only aware of other beings through our senses; without that, we are alone in the universe [Reid]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense
In obscure matters the few must lead the many, but the many usually lead in common sense [Reid]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
The theory of ideas, popular with philosophers, means past existence has to be proved [Reid]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Consciousness is an indefinable and unique operation [Reid]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 8. Human Thought
The structure of languages reveals a uniformity in basic human opinions [Reid]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
If you can't distinguish the features of a complex object, your notion of it would be a muddle [Reid]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 3. Taste
There are axioms of taste - such as a general consensus about a beautiful face [Reid]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli]
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
The basic ideas of fields and particles are merged in quantum mechanics [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
Because it is quantised, a field behaves like a set of packets of energy [Rovelli]
There are about fifteen particles fields, plus a few force fields [Rovelli]
The world consists of quantum fields, with elementary events happening in spacetime [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / c. Electrons
Electrons only exist when they interact, and their being is their combination of quantum leaps [Rovelli]
Electrons are not waves, because their collisions are at a point, and not spread out [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / d. Quantum mechanics
Quantum Theory describes events and possible interactions - not how things are [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
Nature has three aspects: granularity, indeterminacy, and relations [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 4. Substantival Space
The world is just particles plus fields; space is the gravitational field [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow
Only heat distinguishes past from future [Rovelli]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]