15877
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The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
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Full Idea:
In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
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From:
report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
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A reaction:
I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.
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22973
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The present moment, time's direction, and time's dynamic quality seem to be objective facts [Price,H]
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Full Idea:
The flow of time seems to be an objective feature of reality because of 1) the present moment can be objectively distinguished, 2) time has an objective direction, of earlier and later, and 3) there is something objectively dynamic about time.
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From:
Huw Price (The Flow of Time [2011], 1.1)
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A reaction:
Price sets out to undermine all three of these claims, in implicit defence of a psychological view. I disagree with him.
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22975
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We must explain either the existence of a time direction, or our psychological sense of it [Price,H]
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Full Idea:
If the world comes equipped with a time orientation, where does it come from? If it doesn't, what explains our psychological feeling of a direction for time?
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From:
Huw Price (The Flow of Time [2011], 3.5)
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A reaction:
The chances of 'explaining' either one look slim to me. That is, the fact would explain our experience, but the experience without the fact looks ridiculous, and I cannot conceive of any time-free entity which could explain the fact.
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