4 ideas
| 4422 | The end need not be the goal, as in the playing of a melody (and yet it must be completed) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Not every end is the goal; the end of a melody is not its goal; and yet: as long as the melody has not reached its end, it also hasn't reached its goal. A parable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Wanderer and his Shadow [1880], §204) | |
| A reaction: A nice message for Aristotle, that there is no simple separation of ends and means. |
| 8659 | The gods alone live forever with Shamash. The days of humans are numbered. [Anon (Gilg)] |
| Full Idea: The gods alone are the ones who live forever with Shamash. / As for humans, their days are numbered. | |
| From: Anon (Gilg) (The Epic of Gilgamesh [c.2300 BCE], 3.2.34), quoted by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Friend quotes this to show the antiquity of the concept of infinity. It also, of course, shows that Sumerians at that time did not believe in human immortality. |
| 1748 | 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 |
| 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. |