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Ernst Mach 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916
Mach believed that memory grew beyond individual memory and would become memory shared by a culture. An example would be animal instincts. An animal instinctually understands danger even before it understands what danger is. Mach believed this due to the animals ancestors passing the memory of danger to future generations, thus it being of second nature to animals. -
Ernst Mach 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916
"Scientific thought arises out of popular thought, and so completes the continuous series of biological development that begins with the first simple manifestations of life.….Indeed, the formation of scientific hypotheses is merely a further degree of development of instinctive and primitive thought, and all the transitions between them can be demonstrated" (Pojman, 2020) -
Ernst Mach 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916
" The developmental processes of evolution have given rise to this complex human activity we call science, which now itself is participating in the processes of evolution. Just as the eye, for instance, has evolved to better aid us in adapting to a greater variety of landscapes, so science has evolved to better aid us in adapting to the world. "(Pojman, 2020) -
Ernst Mach 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916
Ernst Mach wrote his book "The Analysis of Sensations" in 1897. This book discusses his ideology that science is just a connection of phenomena, and that all sensations are connected. -
Ernst Mach 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916
Here Mach is saying that science is just the connection of phenomena, and that theories are like leaves that fall away when they have ceased to be useful. He explains that science is always evolving because we as humans are evolving. We change theories and our understanding of science to better understand the world around us and as our scope of the world expands. our theories must change to help us adapt to the ever changing world. -
Citations
Pojman, Paul, "Ernst Mach", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/ernst-mach/.
Mach, Ernst. The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical. www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/mach.htm.
