Our conceptions (ideas) of matter, molecules, atoms, corpuscles, electrons, the ether, motion, force, energy, space, and time stand in the same or similar relation to reality as the xs and ys of the mathematician do to the entities of his problem. Matter, molecules, atoms, corpuscles, electrons, the ether, motion, force, energy, space, and time do not exist actually and really as we conceive them, nor do they have actually and really the qualities and characteristics with which we endow them. The concepts are simply representations of things outside ourselves; things which, while real, have an essential nature not known to us. [They] are merely devices, symbols, which enable us to reason about reality. They are parts of a conceptual mechanism in our minds which operates, or enables our minds to operate, in the same sequence of events as the sequence of phenomena in the external universe, so that when we perceive by our senses a group of phenomena in the external universe, we can reason out what result will flow from the interaction of the realities involved, and thus predict what the situation will be at a given stage in the sequence. But while our conceptual universe has thus a mechanical aspect, we do not regard the real universe as mechanical in its nature.
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 16:42:09 +0000
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