79 ideas
19579 | The history of philosophy is just experiments in how to do philosophy [Novalis] |
19583 | Philosophy only begins when it studies itself [Novalis] |
14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
19581 | A problem is a solid mass, which the mind must break up [Novalis] |
17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
19584 | Whoever first counted to two must have seen the possibility of infinite counting [Novalis] |
22025 | Novalis thought self-consciousness cannot disclose 'being', because we are temporal creatures [Novalis, by Pinkard] |
19482 | Current physics says matter and antimatter should have reduced to light at the big bang [New Sci.] |
19483 | CP violation shows a decay imbalance in matter and antimatter, leading to matter's dominance [New Sci.] |
17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
22067 | Poetry is true idealism, and the self-consciousness of the universe [Novalis] |
19737 | A system can infer the structure of the world by making predictions about it [New Sci.] |
19736 | Neural networks can extract the car-ness of a car, or the chair-ness of a chair [New Sci.] |
16419 | No one has yet devised a rationality test [New Sci.] |
16417 | About a third of variation in human intelligence is environmental [New Sci.] |
16418 | People can be highly intelligent, yet very stupid [New Sci.] |
19484 | Psychologists measure personality along five dimensions [New Sci.] |
19585 | Every person has his own language [Novalis] |
19582 | Morality and philosophy are mutually dependent [Novalis] |
22027 | Life isn't given to us like a novel - we write the novel [Novalis] |
19580 | If the pupil really yearns for the truth, they only need a hint [Novalis] |
19950 | Entropy is the only time-asymmetric law, so time may be linked to entropy [New Sci.] |
19478 | Light moves at a constant space-time speed, but its direction is in neither space nor time [New Sci.] |
19474 | Quantum states are measured by external time, of unknown origin [New Sci.] |
19473 | The Schrödinger equation describes the evolution of an object's wave function in Hilbert space [New Sci.] |
17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
19954 | It is impossible for find a model of actuality among the innumerable models in string theory [New Sci.] |
19953 | In string theory space-time has a grainy indivisible substructure [New Sci.] |
19476 | String theory needs at least 10 space-time dimensions [New Sci.] |
19947 | Hilbert Space is an abstraction representing all possible states of a quantum system [New Sci.] |
19948 | Einstein's merging of time with space has left us confused about the nature of time [New Sci.] |
19475 | Relativity makes time and space jointly basic; quantum theory splits them, and prioritises time [New Sci.] |
19955 | Space-time may be a geometrical manifestation of quantum entanglement [New Sci.] |
19949 | Quantum theory relies on a clock outside the system - but where is it located? [New Sci.] |
19951 | Entropy is puzzling, so we may need to build new laws which include time directionality [New Sci.] |
19477 | General relativity predicts black holes, as former massive stars, and as galaxy centres [New Sci.] |
19952 | Black holes have entropy, but general relativity says they are unstructured, and lack entropy [New Sci.] |
16420 | 84.5 percent of the universe is made of dark matter [New Sci.] |
17604 | We are halfway to synthesising any molecule we want [New Sci.] |
17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
17603 | Chemistry just needs the periodic table, and protons, electrons and neutrinos [New Sci.] |
17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |