4 ideas
| 20660 | At one level maths and nature are very similar, suggesting some deeper origin [Wolfram] |
| Full Idea: At some rather abstract level one can immediately recognise one basic similarity between nature and mathematics ...this suggests that the overall similarity between mathematics and nature must have a deeper origin. | |
| From: Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science [2002], p.772), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 17 'Philosophy' | |
| A reaction: Personally I think mathematics has been derived by abstracting from the patterns in nature, and then further extrapolating from those abstractions. So the puzzle in nature is not the correspondence with mathematics, but the patterns. |
| 3032 | I can form no notion of what the good is [Amphis] |
| Full Idea: What the good is I no more can form a notion of, than of the good of Plato. | |
| From: Amphis (comedies (frags) [c.350 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.1.22 | |
| A reaction: It was evidently a running joke in the ancient world that no one could define Plato's Form of the Good. He was said to have written a book on it, now lost. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 20659 | Space and its contents seem to be one stuff - so space is the only existing thing [Wolfram] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that both space and its contents should somehow be made of the same stuff - so that in a sense space becomes the only thing in the universe. | |
| From: Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science [2002], p.474), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 17 'Philosophy' | |
| A reaction: I presume the concept of a 'field' is what makes this idea possible. |