49 ideas
4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
20624 | Work degrades into heat, but not vice versa [Close] |
20623 | First Law: energy can change form, but is conserved overall [Close] |
20625 | Third Law: total order and minimum entropy only occurs at absolute zero [Close] |
20622 | All motions are relative and ambiguous, but acceleration is the same in all inertial frames [Close] |
20628 | The electric and magnetic are tightly linked, and viewed according to your own motion [Close] |
20635 | The general relativity equations relate curvature in space-time to density of energy-momentum [Close] |
20642 | Photon exchange drives the electro-magnetic force [Close] |
20627 | Electric fields have four basic laws (two by Gauss, one by Ampère, one by Faraday) [Close] |
20630 | Light isn't just emitted in quanta called photons - light is photons [Close] |
20637 | In general relativity the energy and momentum of photons subjects them to gravity [Close] |
20629 | Electro-magnetic waves travel at light speed - so light is electromagnetism! [Close] |
20632 | In QED, electro-magnetism exists in quantum states, emitting and absorbing electrons [Close] |
20639 | Quantum fields contain continual rapid creation and disappearance [Close] |
20641 | Electrons get their mass by interaction with the Higgs field [Close] |
20631 | Dirac showed how electrons conform to special relativity [Close] |
20626 | Modern theories of matter are grounded in heat, work and energy [Close] |
20633 | The Higgs field is an electroweak plasma - but we don't know what stuff it consists of [Close] |
20640 | Space-time is indeterminate foam over short distances [Close] |
6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |
3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |