Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Human Freedom and Divine choice' and 'Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics'

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5 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Of the essence of a particular thing is what pertains to it necessarily and perpetually; of the concept of an individual thing on the other hand is what pertains to it contingently or per accidens.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Human Freedom and Divine choice [1690], Grua 383), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
     A reaction: This arbitrates on the apparent conflict between his remarks in Idea 13077 and Idea 10382. There seems to be a distinction between the 'concept' of a thing, and the 'complete concept', the latter including the contingent properties.
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').
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
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?
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...
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / b. Standard model
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)