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All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Theories of Everything' and 'works'

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27 ideas

4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P]
     Full Idea: Abelard's theory of substantial integral wholes is not a pure mereology in the modern sense, since he holds that there are privileged divisions; ..the division of a whole must be into its principal parts. Some wholes have a natural division.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2
     A reaction: This is a mereology that cuts nature at the joints, rather than Lewis's 'unrestricted composition', so I find Abelard rather appealing.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals
If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P]
     Full Idea: Abelard argued that if the universal 'animal' were completely present in both Socrates and an ass, making each wholly an animal, then the same thing, animal, will be simultaneously rational and irrational, with contraries present in the whole thing.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2
     A reaction: If we have universals for rationality and irrationality, they can distinguish the two. But we must also say that rationality is not an aspect of animal, which seems to mean that mind isn't either. What is the essence of an animal? Not reason?
Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P]
     Full Idea: Abelard was an irrealist about universals, but also about propositions, events, times other than the present, natural kinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, and the like. The concrete individual is enough to populate the world.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2
     A reaction: If a Nominalist claims that 'only particulars exist', this makes him an extreme nominalist, and remarkably materialistic for his time (though he accepted the soul, as well as God).
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio]
     Full Idea: Abelard concluded that only words can be 'predicated of many'. A universal is nothing but a general linguistic predicate, and its universality depends not on its mode of being, but on its mode of signifying.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter'
     A reaction: Abelard seems to be the originator of what is now called Predicate Nominalism, with Nelson Goodman as his modern representative. If it is just words, is there no fact of two things having the 'same' property?
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein]
     Full Idea: The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.7
     A reaction: Most modern philosophers couldn't (apparently) care less where a concept originated, but one of the principles of this database is that such things do matter. I'm not sure why, but if we want the whole picture, we need the historical picture.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique
Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard]
     Full Idea: Abelard's problem is that it is not clear how singular forms could do the job they are supposed to do - to account for abstraction, namely - if they were purely singular aspects.
     From: comment on Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter'
     A reaction: A very nice question! If we say that abstracta are just acquired by ignoring all but that feature in some objects, how do we identify 'that' feature in order to select it? The instances must share something in common to be abstracted.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio]
     Full Idea: Abelard argued from the commonly accepted definition of a universal as 'what can be predicated of man', that no external thing can ever be predicated of anything.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter'
     A reaction: It sounds to me as if Abelard is confusing predicates with properties! Maybe no external can be a property of anything, but I take predicates to just be part of what you can say about anything, and that had better included external facts.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
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').
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 7. Critique of Kinds
Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P]
     Full Idea: In Abelard's view a natural kind is a well-defined collection of things that have the same features, so that natural kinds have no special status, being no more than discrete integral wholes whose principle of membership is similarity.
     From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2
     A reaction: I take a natural kind to be a completely stable and invariant class of things. Presumably this invariance has an underlying explanation, but Abelard seems to take the Humean line that we cannot penetrate beyond the experienced surface.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / b. Heat
Work degrades into heat, but not vice versa [Close]
     Full Idea: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, declared (in 1865) the second law of thermodynamics: mechanical work inevitably tends to degrade into heat, but not vice versa.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Perpetual')
     A reaction: The basis of entropy, which makes time an essential part of physics. Might this be the single most important fact about the physical world?
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / c. Conservation of energy
First Law: energy can change form, but is conserved overall [Close]
     Full Idea: The first law of thermodynamics : energy can be changed from one form to another, but is always conserved overall.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Perpetual')
     A reaction: So we have no idea what energy is, but we know it's conserved. (Daniel Bernoulli showed the greater the mean energy, the higher the temperature. James Joule showed the quantitative equivalence of heat and work p.26-7)
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / d. Entropy
Third Law: total order and minimum entropy only occurs at absolute zero [Close]
     Full Idea: The third law of thermodynamics says that a hypothetical state of total order and minimum entropy can be attained only at the absolute zero temperature, minus 273 degrees Celsius.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Arrow')
     A reaction: If temperature is energetic movement of atoms (or whatever), then obviously zero movement is the coldest it can get. So is absolute zero an energy state, or an absence of energy? I have no idea what 'total order' means.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity
All motions are relative and ambiguous, but acceleration is the same in all inertial frames [Close]
     Full Idea: There is no absolute state of rest; only relative motions are unambiguous. Contrast this with acceleration, however, which has the same magnitude in all inertial frames.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Newton's')
     A reaction: It seems important to remember this, before we start trumpeting about the whole of physics being relative. ....But see Idea 20634!
The electric and magnetic are tightly linked, and viewed according to your own motion [Close]
     Full Idea: Electric and magnetic phenomena are profoundly intertwined; what you interpret as electric or magnetic thus depends on your own motion.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: This sounds like an earlier version of special relativity.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
The general relativity equations relate curvature in space-time to density of energy-momentum [Close]
     Full Idea: The essence of general relativity relates 'curvature in space-time' on one side of the equation to the 'density of momentum and energy' on the other. ...In full, Einstein required ten equations of this type.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 5 'Gravity')
     A reaction: Momentum involves mass, and energy is equivalent to mass (e=mc^2).
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / a. Electrodynamics
Electric fields have four basic laws (two by Gauss, one by Ampère, one by Faraday) [Close]
     Full Idea: Four basic laws of electric and magnetic fields: Gauss's Law (about the flux produced by a field), Gauss's law of magnets (there can be no monopoles), Ampère's Law (fields on surfaces), and Farday's Law (accelerated magnets produce fields).
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: [Highly compressed, for an overview. Close explains them]
Light isn't just emitted in quanta called photons - light is photons [Close]
     Full Idea: Planck had assumed that light is emitted in quanta called photons. Einstein went further - light is photons.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: The point is that light travels as entities which are photons, rather than the emissions being quantized packets of some other stuff.
In general relativity the energy and momentum of photons subjects them to gravity [Close]
     Full Idea: In Einstein's general theory, gravity acts also on energy and momentum, not simply on mass. For example, massless photons of light feel the gravitational attraction of the Sun and can be deflected.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 5 'Planck')
     A reaction: Ah, a puzzle solved. How come massless photons are bent by gravity?
Electro-magnetic waves travel at light speed - so light is electromagnetism! [Close]
     Full Idea: Faradays' measurements predicted the speed of electro-magnetic waves, which happened to be the speed of light, so Maxwell made an inspired leap: light is an electromagnetic wave!
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: Put that way, it doesn't sound like an 'inspired' leap, because travelling at exactly the same speed seems a pretty good indication that they are the same sort of thing. (But I'm not denying that Maxwell was a special guy!)
In QED, electro-magnetism exists in quantum states, emitting and absorbing electrons [Close]
     Full Idea: Dirac created quantum electrodynamics (QED): the universal electro-magnetic field can exist in discreet states of energy (with photons appearing and disappearing by energy excitations. This combined classical ideas, quantum theory and special relativity.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: Close says this is the theory of everything in atomic structure, but not in nuclei (which needs QCD and QFD). So if there are lots of other 'fields' (e.g. gravitational, weak, strong, Higgs), how do they all fit together? Do they talk to one another?
Photon exchange drives the electro-magnetic force [Close]
     Full Idea: The exchange of photons drives the electro-magnetic force.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Superstrings')
     A reaction: So light, which we just think of as what is visible, is a mere side-effect of the engine room of nature - the core mechanism of the whole electro-magnetic field.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
Quantum fields contain continual rapid creation and disappearance [Close]
     Full Idea: Quantum field theory implies that the vacuum of space is filled with particles and antiparticles which bubble in and out of existence on faster and faster timescales over shorter and shorter distances.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Intro')
     A reaction: Ponder this sentence until you head aches. Existence, but not as we know it, Jim. Close says calculations in QED about the electron confirm this.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / c. Electrons
Electrons get their mass by interaction with the Higgs field [Close]
     Full Idea: The electron gets its mass by interaction with the ubiquitous Higgs field.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Hierarchy')
     A reaction: I thought I understood mass until I read this. Is it just wrong to say the mass of a table is the 'amount of stuff' in it?
Dirac showed how electrons conform to special relativity [Close]
     Full Idea: In 1928 Paul Dirac discovered the quantum equation that describes the electron and conforms to the requirements special relativity theory.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Light!')
     A reaction: This sounds like a major step in the unification of physics. Quantum theory and General relativity remain irreconcilable.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
Modern theories of matter are grounded in heat, work and energy [Close]
     Full Idea: The link between temperature, heat, work and energy is at the root of our historical ability to construct theories of matter, such as Newton's dynamics, while ignoring, and indeed being ignorant of - atomic dimensions.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 3 'Arrow')
     A reaction: That is, presumably, that even when you fill in the atoms, and the standard model of physics, these aspects of matter do the main explaiining (of the behaviour, rather than of the structure).
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 5. Unified Models / a. Electro-weak unity
The Higgs field is an electroweak plasma - but we don't know what stuff it consists of [Close]
     Full Idea: In 2012 it was confirmed that we are immersed in an electroweak plasma - the Higgs field. We curently have no knowledge of what this stuff might consist of.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 4 'Higgs')
     A reaction: The second sentence has my full attention. So we don't understand a field properly until we understand the 'stuff' it is made of? So what are all the familiar fields made of? Tell me more!
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
Space-time is indeterminate foam over short distances [Close]
     Full Idea: At very short distances, space-time itself becomes some indeterminate foam.
     From: Frank Close (Theories of Everything [2017], 6 'Intro')
     A reaction: [see Close for a bit more detail of this weird idea]