Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Kinds of Minds' and 'Causality: Production and Propagation'

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2 ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett]
     Full Idea: Might plants just be 'very slow animals', enjoying sentience that has been overlooked by us because of our human timescale chauvinism?
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Delightful thought, arising from pondering the significance of the speed of operation of the brain. I think it is false, because I think high speed is essential to mind, and Dennett seems not to.