Reading Notes: July 11th, 2024

“If any system, whether under the influence of other objects or not, has been quiescent for a finite time it can only be through the action of external objects and not through its own nature that it ceases to be quiescent. Such a system will neither change its qualities nor move as a whole or in parts, nor cease to exist as a whole or in parts unless it is forced to do so by changes in objects external to it.” (Broad, Perception, Physics, and Reality: An Enquiry into the Information that Physical Science Can Supply About the Real, 85-86)

“The continuity of space is defined mathematically as an infinite series of points or positions, and therefore as absolutely discrete, and the infinity of the series is defined by the negation of contact. No member is next another and between any two points there is another. So also with the continuity of time the instants are points and the process succession, and the compactness of a period consists in no two instants being next one another so as to exclude an intervening instant.” (Carr, Symposium: The Quantum Theory: How Far Does it Modify the Mathematical, the Physical and the Psychological Concepts of Continuity?, 48-49)