41 ideas
15169 | Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle] |
15164 | We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle] |
17536 | If it can't be expressed mathematically, it can't occur in nature? [Heisenberg] |
17545 | Quantum theory shows that exact science does not need dogmatic realism [Heisenberg] |
17538 | Quantum theory does not introduce minds into atomic events [Heisenberg] |
17534 | A 'probability wave' is a quantitative version of Aristotle's potential, a mid-way type of reality [Heisenberg] |
15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
17553 | We can retain the idea of 'substance', as indestructible mass or energy [Heisenberg] |
17544 | Basic particles have a mathematical form, which is more important than their substance [Heisenberg] |
15184 | Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle] |
15172 | Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle] |
15181 | Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle] |
15173 | That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle] |
15185 | We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle] |
15175 | Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle] |
15032 | Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority [Sidelle, by Sider] |
15179 | To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary [Sidelle] |
15171 | The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle] |
15167 | Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle] |
15177 | Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle] |
15176 | The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle] |
15174 | A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle] |
15183 | 'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle] |
15165 | A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle] |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
17550 | We give a mathematical account of a system of natural connections in order to clarify them [Heisenberg] |
6552 | You can only explain the qualities of large objects using entities which lack those qualities [Heisenberg] |
15168 | That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water' [Sidelle] |
15166 | Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open [Sidelle] |
15182 | Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle] |
17549 | Seven theories in science: mechanics, heat, electricity, quantum, particles, relativity, life [Heisenberg, by PG] |
15178 | Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle] |
17540 | Energy is that which moves, and is the substance from which everything is made [Heisenberg] |
17541 | Energy is an unchanging substance, having many forms, and causing all change [Heisenberg] |
17548 | Maxwell introduced real fields, which transferred forces from point to point [Heisenberg] |
17533 | Radiation interference needs waves, but radiation photoelectric effects needs particles [Heisenberg] |
17532 | An atom's stability after collisions needs explaining (which Newton's mechanics can't do) [Heisenberg] |
17537 | Position is complementary to velocity or momentum, so the whole system is indeterminate [Heisenberg] |
17551 | It was formerly assumed that electromagnetic waves could not be a reality in themselves [Heisenberg] |
17543 | So-called 'empty' space is the carrier of geometry and kinematics [Heisenberg] |
17552 | In relativity the length of the 'present moment' is relative to distance from the observer [Heisenberg] |