6 ideas
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Those seeking to give their lives meaning usually envision a role in something larger than themselves, …but such a role can't confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
| A reaction: Which correctly implies that this way of finding meaning for one's life is doomed. |
| 17914 | He made a molten sea, which was ten cubits across, and thirty cubits round the edge [Anon (Kings)] |
| Full Idea: And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other; it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of cubits did compass it round about. | |
| From: Anon (Kings) (11: Book of Kings 1 [c.550 BCE], 7:23) | |
| A reaction: In the sixth century BCE, this appears to give 3 as the value of Pi, though perhaps it shouldn't be taken too literally! |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
| A reaction: This is the correct account, with the vital proviso that where justification comes to an end is usually a social matter. Robinson Crusoe doesn't care whether he 'knows' - he just acts on his beliefs. |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If life is absurd because it only lasts seventy years, wouldn't it be infinitely absurd if it lasted for eternity? And if we are absurd because we are small, would we be any less absurd if we filled the universe? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §1) |
| 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. |