68 ideas
21844 | The history of philosophy is an agent of power: how can you think if you haven't read the great names? [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: The history of philosophy has always been the agent of power in philosophy, and even in thought. It has played the oppressor's role: how can you think without having read Plato, Descartes, Kant and Heidegger. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: I find it hard to relate to this French 1960s obsession with everybody being oppressed in every conceivable way, so that 'liberation' is the only value that matters. If you ask why liberty is needed, you seem to have missed the point. |
21849 | Thought should be thrown like a stone from a war-machine [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Thought should be thrown like a stone by a war-machine. …Isn't this what Nietzsche does with an aphorism? | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II) | |
A reaction: It sounds as if philosophy should consist of nothing but aphorisms. |
21845 | Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is shot through with the project of becoming the official language of a Pure State. The exercise of thought thus conforms to the goals of the real State, to the dominant meanings and to the requirements of the established order. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: [He cites Nietzsche's 'Schopenhauer as Educator' as the source of this] Is Karl Marx included in this generalisation, or Diogenes of Sinope? Is conservative philosophy thereby invalidated? |
21839 | When I meet objections I just move on; they never contribute anything [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Not reflection, and objections are even worse. Every time someone puts an objection to me, I want to say: 'OK, OK, let's get on to something else'. Objections have never contributed anything. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: I know it is heresy in analytic philosophy, but I love this! In analytic seminars you can barely complete your first sentence before someone interrupts. It's like road range - the philosophical mind state is always poised to attack, attack. |
21841 | We must create new words, and treat them as normal, and as if designating real things. [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the attitude of someone creating a computer game. A language game! The idea is to create concepts with which to 'palpitate' our conceptual scheme, in order to reveal it, and thus put it within our power. |
224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
21842 | Don't assess ideas for truth or justice; look for another idea, and establish a relationship with it [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: You should not try to find whether an idea is just or correct. You should look for a completely different idea, elsewhere, in another area, so that something passes between the two which is neither in one nor the other. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: Neither relativism nor dialectic. Sounds like just having fun with ideas, but a commentator tells me it is a strategy for liberating our thought, following an agenda created by Nietzsche. |
21850 | Dualisms can be undone from within, by tracing connections, and drawing them to a new path [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: It is always possible to undo dualisms from the inside, by tracing the line of flight which passes between the two terms or the two sets …and which draws both into a non-parallel evolution. At least this does not belong to the dialectic. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II) | |
A reaction: Deleuze disliked Hegel's version of the dialectic. Not clear what he means here, but he is evidently groping for an alternative account of the reasoning process, which is interesting. Deleuze hates rigid dualisms. |
21838 | Before we seek solutions, it is important to invent problems [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: The art of constructing a problem is very important: you invent a problem, a problem-position, before finding a solution. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: I get the impression that Deleuze prefers problems to solutions, so the activity of exploring the problem is all that really matters. Sceptics accuse philosophers of inventing pseudo-problems. We must first know why 'problematising' is good. |
13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) | |
A reaction: This seems to be rhetorical, rather a precise theory, given that the One is said to be eternal and unchanging. The One is not just what we call 'reality'. |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
21847 | Before Being there is politics [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Before Being there is politics. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: [He says he is quoting Felix Guattari] I can only think that this is a very Marxist view - that politics permeates and dictates everything. This seems to tell me that I am forever controlled by something so deep and vast that I can never understand it. |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) | |
A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition. |
227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
21840 | A meeting of man and animal can be deterritorialization (like a wasp with an orchid) [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: The wasp becomes part of the orchid's reproductive apparatus at the same time as the orchid becomes the sexual organ of the wasp. …There are becomings where a man and an animal only meet on the trajectory of a common but asymmetrical deterritorialization. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: [second bit compressed] The point here is to illustrate 'deterritorialization', a term which Deleuze got from Guattari. It seems to be where the margins of your being become unclear. Recall the externalist, anti-individualist view of mind. |
21843 | People consist of many undetermined lines, some rigid, some supple, some 'lines of flight' [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: Things, people, are made up of varied lines, and they do not necessarily know which line they are on or where they should make the line which they are tracing pass; there is a whole geography in people, with rigid lines, supple lines, lines of flight etc. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I) | |
A reaction: An example of Deleuze creating a novel concept, in order to generate a liberating way of seeing our lives. His big focus is on 'lines of flight' (which, I think, are less restrained by local culture than the others). |
21848 | Some lines (of flight) are becomings which escape the system [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: There are lines which do not amount to the path of a point, which break free from structure - lines of flight, becomings, without future or past, without memory, which resist the binary machine. …The rhizome is all this. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II) | |
A reaction: The binary machine enforces simplistic either/or choices. I assume the 'lines' are to replace the Self, with something much more indeterminate, active and changing. |
222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
21181 | Relativity and Quantum theory give very different accounts of forces [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: General Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two great theories in physics today but they give two very different ideas for how forces work. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 01) | |
A reaction: Relativity says it is space curvature, and quantum theory says it is particle exchange? But is there a Relativity account of the strong nuclear force? |
21183 | Thermodynamics introduced work and entropy, to understand steam engine efficiency [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: The Laws of Thermodynamics introduced the concepts of entropy and work; put simply, how much useful energy you can really get out of a steam engine. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 03) | |
A reaction: The point of science by this stage was to introduce measurable and quantifiable concepts |
21191 | Photons are B and W° bosons, linked by the Higgs mechanism [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: The photon is actually a mix of two deeper things, the B and the W°, tied together by the Higgs mechanism. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 06) | |
A reaction: The B (for 'Boson') transmits a force associated with the 'winding symmetry'. (I record this without properly understanding it.) |
21199 | Spinning electric charge produces magnetism, so all fermions are magnets [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: The muon, like all fermions, spins - and because a spinning electric charge generates a magnetic field all fermions act like tiny bar magnets. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 11) |
21180 | Electrons are fundamental and are not made of anything; they are properties without size [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: As far as we can tell, electrons (and quarks) are fundamental. They are not small lumps of material, because we could always ask what the material is. The electron just ...is. They are collections of properties, with no apparent size. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 01) | |
A reaction: This idea from physics HAS to be of interest to philosophers! The bundle theory is discredited for normal objects and for minds, and so is the substrate idea for supporting properties. But rigorous physics accepts a bundle theory. |
21189 | Electrons may have smaller components, bound by a new force [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Quarks, leptons or bosons may actually be made up of something even smaller, bound together by a conjectural new force. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 05) | |
A reaction: Electrons are a type of lepton. Compare Idea 21180, from the same book. If electrons are not fundamental, what matters is not some 'stuff' they are made of, but a different force that would bind the ingredients. |
21184 | Physics was rewritten to explain stable electron orbits [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Explaining the stable electron orbits would require a complete rewriting of the physics of subatomic particles. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 03) | |
A reaction: This really looks like a simple and major landmark moment. You can ignore a single anomaly, but not a central feature of your entire theory. |
21182 | Quantum mechanics is our only theory, and is very precise, and repeatedly confirmed [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Quantum mechanics is the only working description of the universe that we have. It is amazingly precise, and so far every experimental test has verified its predictions. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 02) | |
A reaction: I take it from this that quantum mechanics is simply TRUE. Get over it! It will never turn out to be wrong, but may be subsumed within some more fine-grained or extensive theory. |
21187 | Virtual particles can't be measured, and can ignore the laws of physics [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: We can never measure these virtual (transitory) particles directly, and it turns out that they don't even have to obey the laws of physics. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 05) | |
A reaction: These seems to be the real significance of the Uncertainty Principle. Such particles 'borrow' huge amounts of energy for very short times. |
21185 | Colour charge is positive or negative, and also has red, green or blue direction [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Colour charge is 'three-dimensional'. As well as the charge having a positive or negative sign, it can also have a direction, and for convenience these three different directions (pointing like a weather vane) are labelled 'red', 'green' and 'blue'. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 04) |
21195 | In Supersymmetry the Standard Model simplifies at high energies [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Supersymmetry suggest that the Standard Model becomes much simpler at high energies. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 10) |
21197 | Standard Model forces are one- two- and three-dimensional [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: The forces in the Standard Model are built on gauge symmetries, with a one-dimensional charge (like electromagnetism), a two-dimensional charge (the weak force), and a three dimensional charge (the strong force). | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 10) | |
A reaction: See also Idea 21185. |
21194 | The Standard Model omits gravity, because there are no particles involved [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Gravity is not included in the Standard Model because we simply cannot study it using particles. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 09) | |
A reaction: I'm guessing that Einstein describes how gravity behaves, but not what it is. |
21188 | Quarks and leptons have a weak charge, for the weak force [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: For the weak force there must be a corresponding 'weak charge', and all the fermions, all the quarks and leptons carry it. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 05) | |
A reaction: So electrons carry a weak charge, as well as an electromagnetic charge. Like owning several passports. |
21186 | Quarks rush wildly around in protons, restrained by the gluons [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Inside a proton the quarks are rushing around like caged animals, free to move until they push against the bars to try to escape, when the gluons pull them back in. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 04) |
21192 | Neutrinos only interact with the weak force, but decays produce them in huge numbers [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: Neutrinos only interact with the weak force, which means they barely interact at all, but because the weak force is crucial in the decays of so many other particles, neutrinos are still produced in huge numbers. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 08) | |
A reaction: They only interact with the W and Z bosons. |
21196 | To combine the forces, they must all be the same strength at some point [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: If all the forces are to combine, at some point they must all be the same strength, and Supersymmetry (SuSy) makes this happen. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 10) | |
A reaction: This sounds like an impressive reason for favouring supersymmetry - as long as you have an a priori preference for everything combining. |
21190 | 'Space' in physics just means location [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: 'Space' in physics really just means location. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 06) | |
A reaction: Location can, of course, only be specified relative to something else. Space is really an abstraction, but at least it means there is some sort of background to locate all the fundamental fields. |
21193 | The universe is 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter, 5% regular matter [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: The most precise surveys of the stars and galaxies tell us that the universe is made up of 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter, and just 5% regular matter (the stuff of the Standard Model of particle physics). | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 09) | |
A reaction: Regular matter - that's me, that is. |
21198 | If a cosmic theory relies a great deal on fine-tuning basic values, it is probably wrong [Hesketh] |
Full Idea: If a theory has to rely on excessive 'fine-tuning', a series of extremely unlikely events in order to produce the universe we see around us, then it is extremely unlikely that this theory is correct. | |
From: Gavin Hesketh (The Particle Zoo [2016], 10) | |
A reaction: He says the Standard Model has 26 parameters which are only known by experiment, rather than by theory. So instead of saying '...so there is a God', we should say '...so our theory isn't very good'. |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |