88 ideas
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| 23183 | Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche] |
| 23188 | Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche] |
| 23212 | A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche] |
| 6937 | Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce] |
| 23199 | What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche] |
| 23202 | Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche] |
| 23196 | Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche] |
| 23186 | Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche] |
| 23211 | Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche] |
| 21492 | Realism is basic to the scientific method [Peirce] |
| 6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
| 6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
| 6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
| 6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
| 6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
| 23201 | The 'I' does not think; it is a construction of thinking, like other useful abstractions [Nietzsche] |
| 23207 | Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche] |
| 23197 | Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche] |
| 6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
| 6944 | Demonstration does not rest on first principles of reason or sensation, but on freedom from actual doubt [Peirce] |
| 23206 | Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche] |
| 6948 | Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce] |
| 6945 | Once doubt ceases, there is no point in continuing to argue [Peirce] |
| 23209 | Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche] |
| 23184 | The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
| 23190 | Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche] |
| 23191 | Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche] |
| 23213 | The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche] |
| 23210 | That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche] |
| 23189 | Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche] |
| 23192 | Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche] |
| 23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
| 23205 | Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche] |
| 23198 | Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche] |
| 23208 | Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche] |
| 23193 | Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche] |
| 23214 | For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche] |
| 23203 | The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche] |
| 23200 | The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche] |
| 23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
| 23204 | To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche] |
| 6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
| 23195 | Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche] |
| 21167 | Gravity is unusual, in that it always attracts and never repels [New Sci.] |
| 21176 | In the Big Bang general relativity fails, because gravity is too powerful [New Sci.] |
| 21147 | Quantum electrodynamics incorporates special relativity and quantum mechanics [New Sci.] |
| 21155 | Photons have zero rest mass, so virtual photons have infinite range [New Sci.] |
| 21161 | In the standard model all the fundamental force fields merge at extremely high energies [New Sci.] |
| 21146 | Electrons move fast, so are subject to special relativity [New Sci.] |
| 21148 | The strong force is repulsive at short distances, strong at medium, and fades at long [New Sci.] |
| 21151 | Gluons, the particles carrying the strong force, interact because of their colour charge [New Sci.] |
| 21152 | The strong force binds quarks tight, and the nucleus more weakly [New Sci.] |
| 21143 | Quarks in threes can build hadrons with spin ½ or with spin 3/2 [New Sci.] |
| 21142 | Classifying hadrons revealed two symmetry patterns, produced by three basic elements [New Sci.] |
| 21150 | Three different colours of quark (as in the proton) can cancel out to give no colour [New Sci.] |
| 21145 | The four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong) are the effects of particles [New Sci.] |
| 21153 | The weak force explains beta decay, and the change of type by quarks and leptons [New Sci.] |
| 21154 | Three particles enable the weak force: W+ and W- are charged, and Z° is not [New Sci.] |
| 21156 | The weak force particles are heavy, so the force has a short range [New Sci.] |
| 21164 | Why do the charges of the very different proton and electron perfectly match up? [New Sci.] |
| 21170 | The Standard Model cannot explain dark energy, survival of matter, gravity, or force strength [New Sci.] |
| 21140 | Spin is a built-in ration of angular momentum [New Sci.] |
| 21149 | Quarks have red, green or blue colour charge (akin to electric charge) [New Sci.] |
| 21158 | Fermions, with spin ½, are antisocial, and cannot share quantum states [New Sci.] |
| 21165 | Spin is akin to rotation, and is easily measured in a magnetic field [New Sci.] |
| 21157 | Particles are spread out, with wave-like properties, and higher energy shortens the wavelength [New Sci.] |
| 21163 | The mass of protons and neutrinos is mostly binding energy, not the quarks [New Sci.] |
| 21168 | Gravitional mass turns out to be the same as inertial mass [New Sci.] |
| 21138 | Neutrons are slightly heavier than protons, and decay into them by emitting an electron [New Sci.] |
| 21144 | Top, bottom, charm and strange quarks quickly decay into up and down [New Sci.] |
| 21141 | Neutrinos were proposed as the missing energy in neutron beta decay [New Sci.] |
| 21169 | Only neutrinos spin anticlockwise [New Sci.] |
| 21166 | Standard antineutrinos have opposite spin and opposite lepton number [New Sci.] |
| 21171 | The symmetry of unified electromagnetic and weak forces was broken by the Higgs field [New Sci.] |
| 21178 | String theory is now part of 11-dimensional M-Theory, involving p-branes [New Sci.] |
| 21175 | String theory might be tested by colliding strings to make bigger 'stringballs' [New Sci.] |
| 21177 | String theory offers a quantum theory of gravity, by describing the graviton [New Sci.] |
| 21179 | Supersymmetric string theory can be expressed using loop quantum gravity [New Sci.] |
| 21159 | Supersymmetry has extra heavy bosons and heavy fermions [New Sci.] |
| 21162 | Only supersymmetry offers to incorporate gravity into the scheme [New Sci.] |
| 21173 | Supersymmetry says particles and superpartners were unities, but then split [New Sci.] |
| 21172 | The evidence for supersymmetry keeps failing to appear [New Sci.] |
| 21160 | The Higgs field means even low energy space is not empty [New Sci.] |
| 21174 | Dark matter must have mass, to produce gravity, and no electric charge, to not reflect light [New Sci.] |
| 23185 | In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche] |
| 6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
| 6946 | If death is annihilation, belief in heaven is a cheap pleasure with no disappointment [Peirce] |