02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Idealism and Metaphysics are Easy
Idealism and metaphysics are the easiest things in the world, because people can talk as much nonsense as they like without basing it on objective reality or having it tested against reality. Materialism and dialectics, on the other hand, need effort. They must be based on and tested by objective reality. Unless one makes the effort one is liable to slip into idealism and metaphysics.
Introductory note to "Material on the Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Clique" (May 1955).Folksonomies: pseudoscience metaphysics
Folksonomies: pseudoscience metaphysics
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notes
notesBecause they require no alignment with reality before speaking of them.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Physics VS Metaphysics
In the 1920s, there was a dinner at which the physicist Robert W. Wood was asked to respond to a toast ... "To physics and metaphysics." Now by metaphysics was meant something like philosophy—truths that you could get to just by thinking about them. Wood took a second, glanced about him, and answered along these lines: The physicist has an idea, he said. The more he thinks it through, the more sense it makes to him. He goes to the scientific literature, and the more he reads, the more promi... 1 notes
notesThe key difference is experimentation.
07 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Do Atoms Exist?
The question whether atoms exist or not... belongs rather to metaphysics. In chemistry we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms is an hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena... whether a further development of the atomic hypothesis promises to advance our knowledge of the mechanism of chemical phenomena... I rather expect that we shall some day find, for what we now call atoms, a mathematico-mechanical explanation, which will render an account of atomic weigh...Folksonomies: metaphysics theory
Folksonomies: metaphysics theory
1 notes
notesThis is a question for metaphysics, but the theory of atoms is useful and works in the laboratory.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Mathematical VS Metaphysical Understandings of Quantum Ph...
The mathematical framework of quantum theory has passed countless successful tests and is now universally accepted as a consistent and accurate description of all atomic phenomena. The verbal interpretation, on the other hand – i.e., the metaphysics of quantum theory – is on far less solid ground. In fact, in more than forty years physicists have not been able to provide a clear metaphysical model. 
1 We have explained the quantum world mathematically, but we have failed to understanding it verbally.
14 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Avicenna Describes His Learning
At night I would return home, set out a lamp before me, and devote myself to reading and writing. Whenever sleep overcame me or I became conscious of weakening, I would turn aside to drink a cup of wine, so that my strength would return to me. Then I would return to reading. And whenever sleep seized me I would see those very problems in my dream; and many questions became clear to me in my sleep. I continued in this until all of the sciences were deeply rooted within me and I understood them... 1 notes
notesDisciplined, exhaustive, and systematic.
09 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Pursuit of Knowledge Comes from Being Free
For it is owing to their wonder that men now both begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of wonders)...Folksonomies: pursuit of knowledge
Folksonomies: pursuit of knowledge
1 notes
notesFrom Aristotle's "Metaphysics". We pursue science not for Utilitarian ends, but for itself.
30 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Why Descartes Matters
His metaphysics, as ingenious and new as his physics, had approximately the same fate; and it is with approximately the same reasons that we can justify it. For such is today the fortune of this great man that after having had countless followers he is practically reduced to a few apologists. He was without doubt mistaken in assuming the existence of innate ideas: but if he had retained from the peripatetic sect [the Aristotelians] the only truth that they taught about the origin of ideas in ... 1 notes
notesDescartes is mocked for looking for innate ideas in the mind, but this is a minor infraction for the revelation he provided that we cannot trust our senses in any way.
