32 ideas
20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
20457 | Zeno assumes collecting an infinity of things makes an infinite thing [Rovelli] |
17518 | Counting 'coin in this box' may have coin as the unit, with 'in this box' merely as the scope [Ayers] |
17516 | If counting needs a sortal, what of things which fall under two sortals? [Ayers] |
20468 | Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli] |
17520 | Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers] |
20467 | Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli] |
17519 | To express borderline cases of objects, you need the concept of an 'object' [Ayers] |
17510 | Speakers need the very general category of a thing, if they are to think about it [Ayers] |
17522 | We use sortals to classify physical objects by the nature and origin of their unity [Ayers] |
17515 | Seeing caterpillar and moth as the same needs continuity, not identity of sortal concepts [Ayers] |
17511 | Recognising continuity is separate from sortals, and must precede their use [Ayers] |
17517 | Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers] |
17513 | If there are two objects, then 'that marble, man-shaped object' is ambiguous [Ayers] |
17523 | Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers] |
17521 | You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers] |
17514 | Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers] |
17509 | Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers] |
17512 | If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers] |
3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |
20461 | The basic ideas of fields and particles are merged in quantum mechanics [Rovelli] |
20462 | Because it is quantised, a field behaves like a set of packets of energy [Rovelli] |
20463 | There are about fifteen particles fields, plus a few force fields [Rovelli] |
20464 | The world consists of quantum fields, with elementary events happening in spacetime [Rovelli] |
20459 | Electrons only exist when they interact, and their being is their combination of quantum leaps [Rovelli] |
20460 | Electrons are not waves, because their collisions are at a point, and not spread out [Rovelli] |
20466 | Quantum Theory describes events and possible interactions - not how things are [Rovelli] |
20465 | Nature has three aspects: granularity, indeterminacy, and relations [Rovelli] |
20458 | The world is just particles plus fields; space is the gravitational field [Rovelli] |
20470 | Only heat distinguishes past from future [Rovelli] |