display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
6470 | Matter is the limit of appearances as distance from the object diminishes [Russell] |
Full Idea: We offer the following tentative definition: The matter of a given thing is the limit of its appearances as their distance from the thing diminishes. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics [1914], §IX) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as empiricism gone mad. Russell is famous for being a 'realist', but you would hardly know it at this point. Personally I put emphasis on 'best explanation', which fairly simply delivers most of our commonsense understandings of reality. |
6468 | There is 'private space', and there is also the 'space of perspectives' [Russell] |
Full Idea: In addition to the private spaces, ..there is the 'space of perspectives', since each private world may be regarded as the appearance which the universe presents from a certain point of view. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics [1914], §VII) | |
A reaction: This replaces his concept of 'public space', which he introduced in 1912. Russell gradually dropped this, but I like the idea that we somehow directly perceive space in two ways simultaneously (which led him to say that space is six-dimensional). |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |