61 ideas
| 18935 | Semantic theory should specify when an act of naming is successful [Sawyer] |
| 18945 | Millians say a name just means its object [Sawyer] |
| 18934 | Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer] |
| 18938 | Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer] |
| 18947 | Definites descriptions don't solve the empty names problem, because the properties may not exist [Sawyer] |
| 20014 | Actions include: the involuntary, the purposeful, the intentional, and the self-consciously autonomous [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20019 | Maybe bodily movements are not actions, but only part of an agent's action of moving [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20021 | Is the action the arm movement, the whole causal process, or just the trying to do it? [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20022 | To be intentional, an action must succeed in the manner in which it was planned [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20023 | If someone believes they can control the lottery, and then wins, the relevant skill is missing [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20025 | We might intend two ways to acting, knowing only one of them can succeed [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20031 | On one model, an intention is belief-desire states, and intentional actions relate to beliefs and desires [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20028 | Groups may act for reasons held by none of the members, so maybe groups are agents [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20027 | If there are shared obligations and intentions, we may need a primitive notion of 'joint commitment' [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20016 | Strong Cognitivism identifies an intention to act with a belief [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20017 | Weak Cognitivism says intentions are only partly constituted by a belief [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20018 | Strong Cognitivism implies a mode of 'practical' knowledge, not based on observation [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20012 | Maybe the explanation of an action is in the reasons that make it intelligible to the agent [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20029 | Causalists allow purposive explanations, but then reduce the purpose to the action's cause [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20013 | It is generally assumed that reason explanations are causal [Wilson/Schpall] |
| 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.] |
| 21179 | Supersymmetric string theory can be expressed using loop quantum gravity [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.] |
| 21162 | Only supersymmetry offers to incorporate gravity into the scheme [New Sci.] |
| 21159 | Supersymmetry has extra heavy bosons and heavy fermions [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.] |