Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, John Heil and John Perry

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5 ideas

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / c. Electrons

18520	Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil]
	Full Idea: Although it is convenient to speak of electrons as particles or elementary substances, when they enter into relations they can 'lose their individuality. Then an electron becomes a kind of 'abstract particular', a way a given system is, a mode.
	From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.7)
	A reaction: Heil rightly warns us against basing our metaphysics on disputed theories of quantum mechanics.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time

15203	Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
	Full Idea: Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action.
	From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a
	A reaction: This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it.

15204	Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
	Full Idea: In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened.
	From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a
	A reaction: So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'.

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 9. Fine-Tuned Universe

18501	Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil]
	Full Idea: Maybe the universe is fine-tuned as it is, not because things happened to fall out as they did during and immediately after the Big Bang, or because God so ordained it, but because God or the Big Bang had no choice.
	From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.09)
	A reaction: You'd be hard put to so why it had to be fine-tuned, so this seems to be a nice speculation. Unverifiable but wholly meaningful. Maybe the stuff fine-tunes itself, by mutual interaction. Or it is the result of natural selection (Lee Smolin).

27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements

7036	The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil]
	Full Idea: I am sympathetic to the idea that the real properties are 'sparse'; ...but if, in counting kinds of property, we include complex properties as well as simple properties, the image of sparseness evaporates.
	From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4)
	A reaction: This seems right to me, and invites the obvious question of which are the sparse real properties. Presumably we let the physicists tell us that, though Heil wants to include qualities like phenomenal colour, which physicists ignore.