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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Mind, Brain and the Quantum' and 'Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74'

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4 ideas

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 3. Final causes
We do not know the nature of one single causality [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: We do not know the nature of one single causality.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [121])
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: It is tempting to see the concept of causation as a product of reason rather than of perception or introspection; something that reason brings to bear on the data of sense, by way of imposing an explanatory order on them.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.154)
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
Laws of nature are merely complex networks of relations [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: All laws of nature are only relations between x, y and z. We define laws of nature as relations to an x, y, and z, each of which in turn, is known to us only in relation to other x's, y's and z's.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [235])
     A reaction: This could be interpreted in Armstrong's terms, as only identifying the x's, y's and z's by their universals, and then seeing laws as how those universal relate. I suspect, though, that Nietzsche has a Humean regularity pattern in mind.