47 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] |
9065 | S5 collapses iterated modalities (◊□P→□P, and ◊◊P→◊P) [Keefe/Smith] |
21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
9064 | Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith] |
9044 | If someone is borderline tall, no further information is likely to resolve the question [Keefe/Smith] |
9048 | The simplest approach, that vagueness is just ignorance, retains classical logic and semantics [Keefe/Smith] |
9055 | The epistemic view of vagueness must explain why we don't know the predicate boundary [Keefe/Smith] |
9049 | Supervaluationism keeps true-or-false where precision can be produced, but not otherwise [Keefe/Smith] |
9056 | Vague statements lack truth value if attempts to make them precise fail [Keefe/Smith] |
9058 | Some of the principles of classical logic still fail with supervaluationism [Keefe/Smith] |
9059 | The semantics of supervaluation (e.g. disjunction and quantification) is not classical [Keefe/Smith] |
9060 | Supervaluation misunderstands vagueness, treating it as a failure to make things precise [Keefe/Smith] |
9050 | A third truth-value at borderlines might be 'indeterminate', or a value somewhere between 0 and 1 [Keefe/Smith] |
9061 | People can't be placed in a precise order according to how 'nice' they are [Keefe/Smith] |
9062 | If truth-values for vagueness range from 0 to 1, there must be someone who is 'completely tall' [Keefe/Smith] |
9063 | How do we decide if my coat is red to degree 0.322 or 0.321? [Keefe/Smith] |
9045 | Vague predicates involve uncertain properties, uncertain objects, and paradoxes of gradual change [Keefe/Smith] |
9047 | Many vague predicates are multi-dimensional; 'big' involves height and volume; heaps include arrangement [Keefe/Smith] |
9053 | If there is a precise borderline area, that is not a case of vagueness [Keefe/Smith] |
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] |
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] |