Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, Kurt Vonnegut and Pierre Simon de Laplace

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


2 ideas

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
Out of more than a hundred planets, Earth is the only one with the idea of free will [Vonnegut]
     Full Idea: I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will'. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.
     From: Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five [1969], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Spoken by the ambassador from the planet Tralfamadore. Possibly the greatest put down of a philosophical idea since Diogenes responded to Plato's definition of a man. I think free will is a non-idea. It is non-sensical, and doesn't exist.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace]
     Full Idea: An intelligence knowing at an instant the whole universe could know the movement of the largest bodies and atoms in one formula, provided his intellect were powerful enough to subject all data to analysis. Past and future would be present to his eyes.
     From: Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820]), quoted by Mark Thornton - Do we have free will? p.70