Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Space and Time', '18: Book of Job' and 'I.39 On Solitude'

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
We must fight fiercely to hang on to the few pleasures which survive into old age [Montaigne]
     Full Idea: I am training and sharpening my appetite for those pleasures that are left. ...We must cling tooth and claw to the use of the pleasures of this life which the advancing years, one after another, rip from our grasp.
     From: Michel de Montaigne (I.39 On Solitude [1580], p.276)
     A reaction: That may be one of the most inspiring ideas I have read about pleasure.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
Space alone, and time alone, will fade away, and only their union has an independent reality [Minkowski]
     Full Idea: Henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
     From: Hermann Minkowski (Space and Time [1908], Intro)
     A reaction: Notice the qualification that it is a 'kind of' union. Deep confusion arises from exaggerating the analogy between space and time. Craig Bourne remarks (2006:157) that this shows independence of measurement, not of reality
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
There is no hereafter in the Book of Job [Anon (Job), by Watson]
     Full Idea: The entire Book of Job is concerned with faith and suffering and inequality in a life where there is no hereafter (all the rewards promised to the Jews by their God are worldly).
     From: report of Anon (Job) (18: Book of Job [c.535 BCE]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.5
     A reaction: It is extraordinary how such ideas can creep into the great religions, and then become taken for granted, as if no one had ever doubted them.