7 ideas
| 19400 | Possibles demand existence, so as many of them as possible must actually exist [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: From the conflict of all the possibles demanding existence, this at once follows, that there exists that series of things by which as many of them as possible exist. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.91) | |
| A reaction: I'm in tune with a lot of Leibniz, but my head swims with this one. He seems to be a Lewisian about possible worlds - that they are concrete existing entities (with appetites!). Could Lewis include Leibniz's idea in his system? |
| 19401 | God's sufficient reason for choosing reality is in the fitness or perfection of possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The sufficient reason for God's choice can be found only in the fitness (convenance) or in the degree of perfection that the several worlds possess. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: The 'fitness' of a world and its 'perfection' seem very different things. A piece of a jigsaw can have wonderful fitness, without perfection. Occasionally you get that sinking feeling with metaphysicians that they just make it up. |
| 19402 | The actual universe is the richest composite of what is possible [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The actual universe is the collection of the possibles which forms the richest composite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Exigency to Exist in Essences [1690], p.92) | |
| A reaction: 'Richest' for Leibniz means a maximum combination of existence, order and variety. It's rather like picking the best starting team from a squad of footballers. |
| 16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
| Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted. | |
| From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
| A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763. |
| 21731 | Fields can be 'scalar', or 'vector', or 'tensor', or 'spinor' [Baggott] |
| Full Idea: Fields can be 'scalar', with no particular direction (pointing, but not pushing or pulling); or 'vector', with a direction (like magnetism, or Newtonian gravity); or 'tensor' (needing further parameters); or 'spinor' (depending on spin orientation). | |
| From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] So the question is, why do they differ? What is it in the nature of each field the result in a distinctive directional feature? |
| 21730 | A 'field' is a property with a magnitude, distributed across all of space and time [Baggott] |
| Full Idea: A 'field' is defined in terms of the magnitude of some physical property distributed over every point in time and space. | |
| From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum') | |
| A reaction: If it involves a 'property', normal usage entails that there is some entity which possesses the property. So what's the entity? Eh? Eh? You don't know! Disappointed... |
| 21732 | The current standard model requires 61 particles [Baggott] |
| Full Idea: The current model requires 61 particles: three generations of two leptons and two flavours of quark, in three different colours (making 24); the anti-particles of all of these (48); 12 force particles (photon, W1, Z0, 8 gluons), and a Higgs boson. | |
| From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 6 n) |