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2 ideas
| 21581 | We never experience times, but only succession of events [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason in experience to suppose that there are times as opposed to events: the events, ordered by the relations of simultaneity and succession, are all that experience provides. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 4) | |
| A reaction: We experience events, but also have quite an accurate sense of how much time has passed during the occurrence of events. If asked how much time has lapsed, why don't we say '32 events'? How do we distinguish long events from short ones? |
| 6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin. |