11 ideas
| 4424 | A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §7) | |
| A reaction: And what do pacifist philosophers do? It is a moot point whether philosophy is even possible without a streak of aggression. Otherwise you circle the problem, but don't confront it. |
| 3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Ned Block proposes a machine (a 'blockhead') which could pass the Turing Test just by looking up responses in a vast look-up table. | |
| From: report of Ned Block (works [1984]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 5.3 | |
| A reaction: Once you suspected you were talking to a blockhead, I think you could catch it out in a Turing Test. How can the lookup table keep up to date with immediate experience? Ask it about your new poem. |
| 2886 | The distinction between egoistic and non-egoistic acts is absurd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There are neither egoistic nor unegoistic actions: both concepts are psychologically nonsense. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Not quite true, but I like this observation. The idea that you could divide everyone's actions into these two groups is certainly nonsense. But some people are more altruistic than others! |
| 4426 | A bad result distorts one's judgement about the virtue of what one has done [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I should prefer to exclude the bad result, the consequences, from the question of value as a matter of principle. Faced with a bad result, one loses all too easily the right perspective for what one has done. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Clever §1) | |
| A reaction: If the perspective is easily lost, we should make more effort, not ignore consequences. The question is whether you could have foreseen or controlled the consequences. |
| 4425 | The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The overcoming of pity I count among the noble virtues. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Wise §4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I can just about see that there might be more important things than compassion for suffering, but I can't see any human activity that makes it worthwhile to trample on pity. |
| 20132 | To become what you are you must have no self-awareness [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion of what one is. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], II.9), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality 3 'fatalism' | |
| A reaction: [Don't understand 'II.9'] Enigmatic but striking. As I understand it, Nietzsche thought that knowing what you are is virtually impossible, though he spent a lifetime studying himself. Would you recognise someone who had become what they are? |
| 20144 | Eternal recurrence is the highest attainable affirmation [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Eternal recurrence is the highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], III.Z-1?), quoted by Brian Leiter - Nietzsche On Morality | |
| A reaction: Did Nietzsche have in mind an even higher formulation that was unattainable? The aim of eternal recurrence is to offer the highest possible ideal that remains rooted in the nature of ordinary life. It is a cut-down version of the Form of the Good. |
| 2889 | One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Fore) |
| 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. |
| 2887 | I am not an atheist because of reasoning or evidence, but because of instinct [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I have absolutely no knowledge of atheism as an outcome of reasoning, still less an event: with me it is obvious by instinct. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], 3.1) |