16 ideas
13412 | Obtaining numbers by abstraction is impossible - there are too many; only a rule could give them, in order [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: Not all numbers could possibly have been learned à la Frege-Russell, because we could not have performed that many distinct acts of abstraction. Somewhere along the line a rule had to come in to enable us to obtain more numbers, in the natural order. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.165) | |
A reaction: Follows on from Idea 13411. I'm not sure how Russell would deal with this, though I am sure his account cannot be swept aside this easily. Nevertheless this seems powerful and convincing, approaching the problem through the epistemology. |
13413 | We must explain how we know so many numbers, and recognise ones we haven't met before [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: Both ordinalists and cardinalists, to account for our number words, have to account for the fact that we know so many of them, and that we can 'recognize' numbers which we've neither seen nor heard. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.166) | |
A reaction: This seems an important contraint on any attempt to explain numbers. Benacerraf is an incipient structuralist, and here presses the importance of rules in our grasp of number. Faced with 42,578,645, we perform an act of deconstruction to grasp it. |
13411 | If numbers are basically the cardinals (Frege-Russell view) you could know some numbers in isolation [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: If we accept the Frege-Russell analysis of number (the natural numbers are the cardinals) as basic and correct, one thing which seems to follow is that one could know, say, three, seventeen, and eight, but no other numbers. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.164) | |
A reaction: It seems possible that someone might only know those numbers, as the patterns of members of three neighbouring families (the only place where they apply number). That said, this is good support for the priority of ordinals. See Idea 13412. |
13415 | An adequate account of a number must relate it to its series [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: No account of an individual number is adequate unless it relates that number to the series of which it is a member. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.169) | |
A reaction: Thus it is not totally implausible to say that 2 is several different numbers or concepts, depending on whether you see it as a natural number, an integer, a rational, or a real. This idea is the beginning of modern structuralism. |
20657 | There are 23 core brain functions, with known circuit, transmitters, genes and behaviour [Watson] |
Full Idea: In 2014 the National Institutes of Mental Health published a list of 23 core brain functions and their associated neural circuitry, neurotransmitters and genes, and the behaviour and emotions that go with them. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Physics') | |
A reaction: They were interested in the functions behind mental health, but I am interested in the functions behind our belief systems, which might produce a different focus. Sub-functions, perhaps. |
20656 | Traditional ideas of the mind were weakened in the 1950s by mind-influencing drugs [Watson] |
Full Idea: One development in particular in the 1950s helped to discredit the traditional concept of the mind. This was medical drugs that influenced the workings of the brain. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Intro') | |
A reaction: This explains Ryle's 1949 book, and the Australian physicalists emerging in the late 1950s. Philosophers don't grasp how their subject is responsive to other areas of human knowledge. Of course, opium had always done this. |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
20655 | Humans have been hunter-gatherers for 99.5% of their existence [Watson] |
Full Idea: Anthropology shows that the hunter-gathering lifestyle has occupied 99.5 per cent of the time humans have been on earth. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 13 'Emergence') | |
A reaction: If you are trying to understand humanity, you ignore this fact at your peril. Even agriculture is only a tiny part of our history, and that only disappeared as a major human activity (in many nations) in the last hundred years. |
20650 | The Uncertainty Principle implies that cause and effect can't be measured [Watson] |
Full Idea: The Uncertainty Principle implied that in the subatomic world cause and effect could never be measured. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 05 'Against') | |
A reaction: The fact that it can't be measured does not, presumably, entail that it doesn't exist. Physicists seem to ignore causation, rather than denying it. Can causation be real if it only exists at the macro-level, as an emergent phenomenon? |
20649 | The interference of light through two slits confirmed that it is waves [Watson] |
Full Idea: Thomas Young in 1803 confirmed the idea of Huyghens that light is waves, showing how light passing through two slits produces an interference pattern that resembles water waves sluicing through two slits. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 04 'Conception') | |
A reaction: The great puzzle emerges when it also turns out to be quantised particles. |
20661 | Electrons rotate in hyrogen atoms 10^13 times per second [Watson] |
Full Idea: In the hydrogen atom the electron rotates some 10,000 billion times per second. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 18 'Evolutionary') | |
A reaction: That's an awful lot. Is it at the speed of light? |
20647 | Quantum theory explains why nature is made up of units, such as elements [Watson] |
Full Idea: Planck's quantum idea explained so much, including the observation that the chemical world is made up of discrete units - the elements. Discrete elements implied fundamental units of matter that were themselves discrete (as Dalton had said). | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 4 'Intro') | |
A reaction: The atomic theory was only finally confirmed by Einstein in 1905. This idea implies that the very lowest level of all must have distinct building blocks, but so far we have got down to 'fields', which seem to be a sort of 'foam'. |
20654 | Only four particles are needed for matter: up and down quark, electron, electron-neutrino [Watson] |
Full Idea: We need twelve particles in the master equation of the standard model, but it is necessary to have only four to build a universe (up and down quarks, the electron and the electron neutrino (or lepton). The existence of the others is 'a bit of a mystery'. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 11 'First Three') |
20651 | The shape of molecules is important, as well as the atoms and their bonds [Watson] |
Full Idea: Pauling showed that the architecture - the shape of molecules was relevant (as well as the bonds). This meant that molecules were just as important as atoms in the understanding of matter. Molecules were not just the sum of their parts. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 05 'Three') | |
A reaction: If Aristotle struggled to understand matter, then so should modern philosophers. This involves thermodynamics and chemistry, as well as quantum theory. |
20652 | In 1828 the animal substance urea was manufactured from inorganic ingredients [Watson] |
Full Idea: In 1828 Wöhler, in an iconic experiment, had manufactured an organic substance, urea, hitherto the product solely of animals, out of inorganic materials, and without any interventions of vital force. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 06 'Inorganic') | |
A reaction: For reductionists like me, the gradual explanation of life in inorganic terms is the great role model of explanation. I take it for granted that the human mind will go the same way, despite partisan resistance from a lot of philosophers. |
20658 | Information is physical, and living can be seen as replicating and preserving information [Watson] |
Full Idea: In passing information, physical changes take place, and information is thus physical. On this account, the act of living can be seen as replicating and preserving the information that a living body is comprised of. | |
From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 17 'Dreams') | |
A reaction: [He emphasises 'the act' of living, rather than a life] |