39 ideas
20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |