39 ideas
| 9295 | Not only substances have attributes; events, actions, states and qualities can have them [Teichmann] |
| Full Idea: It is not true that only substances have attributes; events, actions, states and qualities can all be characterized. | |
| From: Jenny Teichmann (The Mind and the Soul [1974], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is why it is so important to distinguish the actual properties in nature from those that can be fancifully hypothesized by a linguistic being. Is there any limit to the possible number of levels of meta-properties? |
| 14963 | Surely the past phases of a thing are not parts of the thing? [Broad] |
| Full Idea: It is plainly contrary to common sense to say that the phases in the history of a thing are parts of the thing. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy [1933], I.349-50), quoted by Richard Cartwright - Scattered Objects n18 | |
| A reaction: Nicely expressed! To suggest that me ten years ago is a mere part of some huge me, or that you are only talking to a part of me now, is a very long way indeed from normal usage. |
| 14759 | A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad] |
| Full Idea: A thing is simply a long event, throughout the course of which there is either qualitative similarity or continuous qualitative change, together with a characteristic spatio-temporal unity. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], 10 'Duration') | |
| A reaction: At least he is trying to give some sort of principle that links the stages of the event together. |
| 11842 | If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad] |
| Full Idea: We call a lightning flash or a motor accident an event, but refuse to apply this to the cliffs of Dover. ...But quantitative differences (of time) give no good grounds for calling one bit of history an event, and refusing the name to another bit. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], p.54), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 2.3 n13 | |
| A reaction: Wiggins calls this proposal a 'terrible absurdity', but it seems to me to demand attention. There is a case to be made for a 'process' to be the fundamental category of our ontology, with stable physical objects seen in that light. |
| 7628 | Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund] |
| Full Idea: Broad, one of the most important modern defenders of the representative theory of perception, explicitly rejects the inferential component of the theory. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Mind and Its Place in Nature [1925]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Since the supposed inferences happen much too quickly to be conscious, it is hard to see how we could distinguish an inference from an interpretation mechanism. Personally I interpret things long before the question of truth arises. |
| 17405 | If a theory can be fudged, so can observations [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: A theorist may have designed his theory to fit the facts, but is it not equally possible for observers to be influenced by a theory in their report of experimental facts? | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 05 'Power') | |
| A reaction: This is in reply to Lipton's claim that prediction is better than accommodation because of the 'fudging' problem. The reply is that you might fudge to achieve a prediction. If it was correct, that wouldn't avoid the charge of fudging. |
| 17397 | The periodic system is the big counterexample to Kuhn's theory of revolutionary science [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The history of the periodic system appears to be the supreme counterexample to Kuhn's thesis, whereby scientific developments proceed in a sudden, revolutionary fashion. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 03 'Rapid') | |
| A reaction: What is lovely about the periodic table is that it seems so wonderfully right, and hence no revolution has ever been needed. The big theories of physics and cosmology are much more precarious. |
| 17393 | Scientists eventually seek underlying explanations for every pattern [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Whenever scientists are presented with a useful pattern or system of classification, it is only a matter of time before the begin to ask whether there may be some underlying explanation for the pattern. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], Intro 'Evol') | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears, against the idea that the sole aim of science is accurately describe the patterns. |
| 17403 | The periodic table suggests accommodation to facts rates above prediction [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Rather than proving the value of prediction, the development and acceptance of the periodic table may give us a powerful illustration of the importance of accommodation, that is, the ability of a new scientific theory to explain already known facts. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 05 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: The original table made famous predictions, but also just as many wrong ones (Scerri:143), and Scerri thinks this aspect has been overrated. |
| 9293 | Body-spirit interaction ought to result in losses and increases of energy in the material world [Teichmann] |
| Full Idea: Since the interaction of bodies themselves involves energy-flow, it looks as if interaction between body and spirit ought to result in losses and increases of energy in the material world. | |
| From: Jenny Teichmann (The Mind and the Soul [1974], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of an important argument. It forces the dualist to go the whole way, asserting that not only is the mind immaterial, but that it can be active without energy, and cover its traces in the physical world. Doesn't look good. |
| 17394 | Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds are realistic scientific entities that are differentiated by nature itself rather than by our human attempts at classification. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], Intro 'Evol') |
| 17421 | If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Elements defined by their atomic numbers are frequently assumed to represent 'natural kinds' in chemistry. ...The question arises as to whether groups of elements appearing in the periodic table might also represent natural kinds. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 10 'Elements') | |
| A reaction: Scerri says the distinction is not as sharp as that between the elements. As a realist, he believes there is 'one ideal periodic classification', which would then make the periods into kinds. |
| 17396 | The colour of gold is best explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Many seemingly mundane properties of elements such as the characteristic color of gold ....can best be explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 01 'Under') | |
| A reaction: John Locke - I wish you were reading this! That we could work out the hidden facts of gold, and thereby explain and predict the surface properties we experience, is exactly what Locke thought to be forever impossible. |
| 17420 | The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy, a quantity given by the difference between their masses and the masses of their constituent particles. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 10 'Stabil') |
| 17411 | If all elements are multiples of one (of hydrogen), that suggests once again that matter is unified [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The work of Moseley and others rehabilitated Prout's hypothesis that all elements were composites of hydrogen, being exact multiples of 1. ..This revitalized some philososophical notions of the unity of all matter, criticised by Mendeleev and others. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Philos') |
| 8160 | The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Not only the present but also the past exist, but the future (so long as it is the future) does not. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923]) by Michael Dummett - Thought and Reality 1 | |
| A reaction: This is quite appealing, and seems right if you believe that every truth has a truthmaker, and that there are no truths about the future. And yet the whole misery of people dying is that they cease to exist. |
| 14609 | We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad] |
| Full Idea: One theory accepts the reality of the present and the past, but holds that the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II) | |
| A reaction: This is now known as Broad's 'Growing Block' view of time. It is tempting to say that neither past nor future exist, but it seems undeniable that statements about the past can be wholly true, unlike those about the future. |
| 22933 | We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad] |
| Full Idea: We imagine presentness moving, like the spot of light from a policeman's bulls eye traversing the fronts of houses in a street. What is illuminated is present, what was illuminated is past, and what is not yet illuminated is the future. | |
| From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'moving spotlight' compromise theory, which retains the B-series eternal sequence of ordered events, but adds the A-series privileged present moment. Le Poidevin says Broad represents time twice over. |
| 17392 | How can poisonous elements survive in the nutritious compound they compose? [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: A central mystery of chemistry is how the elements survive in the compounds they form. For example, how can poisonous grey metal sodium combine with green poisonous gas chlorine, to make salt, which is non-poisonous and essential for life? | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], Intro 'Elem') | |
| A reaction: A very nice question which had never occurred to me. If our digestive system pulled the sodium apart from the chlorine, we would die. |
| 17391 | Periodicity and bonding are the two big ideas in chemistry [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The two big ideas in chemistry are chemical periodicity and chemical bonding, and they are deeply interconnected. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], Intro 'Per') |
| 17404 | Chemistry does not work from general principles, but by careful induction from large amounts of data [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Unlike in physics, chemical reasoning does not generally proceed unambiguously from general principles. It is a more inductive science in which large amounts of observational data must be carefully weighed. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 05 'Mendel') | |
| A reaction: This is why essentialist thinking was important for Mendeleev, because it kept his focus on the core facts beneath the messy and incomplete data. |
| 17407 | The electron is the main source of chemical properties [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: It is the electron that is mainly responsible for the chemical properties of the elements. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Intro') |
| 17415 | A big chemistry idea is that covalent bonds are shared electrons, not transfer of electrons [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: One of the most influential ideas in modern chemistry is of a covalent bond as a shared pair of electrons (not as transfer of electrons and the formation of ionic bonds). | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 08 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Gilbert Newton Lewis was responsible for this. |
| 17409 | Does radioactivity show that only physics can explain chemistry? [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Some authors believe that the interpretation of the properties of the elements passed from chemistry to physics as a result of the discovery of radioactivity. ...I believe this view to be overly reductionist. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Radio') | |
| A reaction: It is all a matter of the explanations, and how far down they have to go. If most non-radiocative chemistry doesn't need to mention the physics, then chemistry is largely autonomous. |
| 17418 | It is now thought that all the elements have literally evolved from hydrogen [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The elements are now believed to have literally evolved from hydrogen by various mechanisms. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 10 'Evol) |
| 17398 | 19th C views said elements survived abstractly in compounds, but also as 'material ingredients' [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: In the 19th century abstract elements were believed to be permanent and responsible for observed properties in compounds, but (departing from Aristotle) they were also 'material ingredients', thus linking the metaphysical and material realm. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 04 'Nature') | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure I can make sense of this gulf between the metaphysical and the material realm, so this was an account heading for disaster. |
| 17406 | Moseley, using X-rays, showed that atomic number ordered better than atomic weight [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: By using X-rays, Henry Moseley later discovered that a better ordering principle for the periodic system is atomic numbers rather than atomic weight, by subjecting many different elements to bombardment. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Moseley was killed in the First World War at the age of 26. It is interesting that they more or less worked out the whole table, before they discovered the best principle on which to found it. |
| 17408 | Some suggested basing the new periodic table on isotopes, not elements [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Some chemists even suggested that the periodic table would have to be abandoned in favor of a classification system that included a separate place for every single isotope. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: The extreme case is tin, which has 21 isotopes, so is tin a fundamental, or is each of the isotopes a fundamental? Does there have to be a right answer to that? All tin isotopes basically react in the same way, so we stick with the elements table. |
| 17412 | Elements are placed in the table by the number of positive charges - the atomic number [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The serial number of an element in the periodic table, its atomic number, corresponds to the number of positive charges in the atom. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 07 'Models') | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a feature of the nucleus, despite that fact that the electrons decide the chemical properties. A nice model for Locke's views on essentialism. |
| 17413 | Elements in the table are grouped by having the same number of outer-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The modern notion is that atoms fall into the same group of the periodic table if they possess the same numbers of outer-shell electrons. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 07 'Quantum') | |
| A reaction: Scerri goes on to raise questions about this, on p.242. By this principle helium should be an alkaline earth element, but it isn't. |
| 17416 | Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The prevailing reductionist climate implies that quantum mechanics inevitably provides a more fundamental explanation for the periodic system. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 08 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: Scerri has argued that chemists did much better than physicists in working out how the outer electron shells of atoms worked, by induction from data, rather than inference from basic principles. |
| 17414 | Pauli explained the electron shells, but not the lengths of the periods in the table [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Pauli explained the maximum number of electrons successive shells can accommodate, ...but it does not explain the lengths of the periods, which is the really crucial property of the periodic table. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 07 'Pauli') | |
| A reaction: Paulis' Exclusion Principle says no two electrons in an atom can have the same set of four quantum numbers. He added 'spin' as a fourth number. It means 'electrons cannot be distinguished' (243). Scerri says the big problem is still not fully explained. |
| 17410 | Moseley showed the elements progress in units, and thereby clearly identified the gaps [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Moseley's work showed that the successive elements in the periodic table have an atomic number greater by one unit. The gaps could then be identified definitively, as 43, 61, 72, 75, 85, 87, and 91. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 06 'Henry') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 17419 | Since 99.96% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, the periodic table hardly matters [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: All the elements other than hydrogen and helium make up just 0.04% of the universe. Seen from this perspective, the periodic table appears to rather insignificant. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 10 'Astro') |
| 17395 | Elements were ordered by equivalent weight; later by atomic weight; finally by atomic number [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: Historically, the ordering of elements across periods was determined by equivalent weight, then later by atomic weight, and eventually by atomic number. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 01 'React') | |
| A reaction: So they used to be ordered by quantities (measured by real numbers), but eventually were ordered by unit items (counted by natural numbers). There need to be distinct protons (unified) to be counted. |
| 17422 | The best classification needs the deepest and most general principles of the atoms [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: An optimal classification can be obtained by identifying the deepest and most general principles that govern the atoms of the elements. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 10 'Continuum') | |
| A reaction: He adds (p.286) that the best system will add the 'greatest degree of regularity' to these best principles. |
| 17417 | To explain the table, quantum mechanics still needs to explain order of shell filling [Scerri] |
| Full Idea: The order of shell filling has not yet been deduced from first principles, and this issue cannot be avoided if one is to really ask whether quantum mechanics explains the periodic system in a fundamental manner. | |
| From: Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 09 'From') |
| 9294 | No individuating marks distinguish between Souls [Teichmann] |
| Full Idea: There are no individuating marks which could serve to differentiate one Soul from another. | |
| From: Jenny Teichmann (The Mind and the Soul [1974], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably they could have at least much identity as two different electrons (if they are in space-time?). It is hard to see why anyone would be interested in their 'own' immortality, if loss of all individuality was a condition. |
| 9292 | The Soul has no particular capacity (in the way thinking belongs to the mind) [Teichmann] |
| Full Idea: On the whole, the Soul has no capacities which belong to it pre-eminently in the way that thinking 'belongs' to the mind. | |
| From: Jenny Teichmann (The Mind and the Soul [1974], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: There are no phenomena which have to be saved by postulating a soul. It lacks a function within a human being, but it has a crucial function within a large theological picture. |