Modernity is too Scientific!
Louis Nick III
On Mon, 24 Jun 1996, Matthew J. McIrvin wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> > Critical Thinking, when interpreted through my context (i.e. this is how I
> > see it, and you'll no doubt see it differently), indicates to me two
> > things, as conclusions:
> > 1) We can Know nothing.
> > 2) Everything we believe is True.
> >
> > I can't get beyond these things. And this leads me to approach science
> > critically.
>
> (1) is really part of the standard apparatus of science. What, you thought
> it was a window onto the Ultimate Nature of Reality? I suppose a better
> thing to say in a scientific context would be (1') We can Know nothing,
> but it's stupid to think that there are tiny deceiving demons messing
> with every single one of our sense impressions, and we'd never know anyway,
> so let's assume they aren't.
It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
"better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
ass), I have a model. EE has a model too, which basically consists of a
group of engineering-types (a model themselves) hovering over a buch of
compnents of mysterious value and purpose, making electrons (one more
model, particle or wave, etc.) jump through metaphysical hoops, which, I'm
informed, is what causes electrical action, something I perceive directly
and indirectly via a complicated system of sense(s) (model, model) and
brain.
So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
compared to where I started?
> My standard refutation of (2) is to announce to the person stating it that
> I've just magically turned him into a tiny, slimy frog and his objections
> therefore sound like "croak, croak." There is *no way* to rationally
> refute it, since it explicitly rejects rationality. But completely
> *irrational* refutations work pretty well.
You're showing your modernity. Rationalism (please, please don't blame me
for using an -ism once in a while. It's really hard to communicated
without them) is an element of the scientific quest for understanding.
What would Newton say of the bastardization of his science, now almost
atheistic, compared to when he worked on it? We would arrive at one
understanding, Newton at another, and we'd both be unable to realize and
perceive the other as being anything but wrong, because of its flawed
foundations.
> I think you expected way, way too much of science to begin with. It's
> like the story I once heard, probably a legend, of the student who asks
> his physics professor one day "Why does gravity exist?" The physics
> professor tells him that nobody knows why gravity exists--he could go
> on about general relativity, but nobody knows why general relativity is
> true. The student drops physics the next day. He expected too much.
Science seeks understanding, no? Yet scientists seek the usual human
things, power, money, and ultimately, some sort of satisfaction with life.
No problem there, of course. But what science expects of me is this:
Undying faith in the works of my predecessors. Einstein (or at least what
is allowed to survive of Einstein), Newton (same), Copernicus, etc.
Science is the accumulation of knowledge along a specific thread of
belief. But by standing on the shoulders of the aforementioned d00ds, I'm
not allowed to look down. Could we learn anything from scraping the
particle theory of matter altogether? Well, we'll never find out, will
we? Is it easy or hard to consider a wave getting fired through those
bubble chambers?
<Copywritten Crackpot Theory> Did you know, that through a simple shift of
perspective, one could develop a working relativity model (one that works
as well as the current) by simply changing Einsteins assumption to the
constant length in all reference frames, as opposed to a constant speed of
light? And what have you? A new aether theory, one that casts Michaelson
Morley to the storms, and and it seems to account for light's behavior
(AFAICT) with regard to the photoelectric effect, doppler shifts, yada
yada. Oh, and you can travel faster than light. You'll note that the
restriction form FTL is in fact an assumption of Einstein's, not a
conclusion.</CCT>
> > Science, like all of Modernity, is a temporary paradigm, gone in perhaps
> > the next 500 years, when people will have only dim memories of the
> > workings of atomic bombs and space telescopes.
>
> How do you know this? No civilization has ever come up with 20th-century
> science and technology before (we'd have found their junk if they did).
What was the biggest innovation of the 15th century? Nothing, of course,
because we, in our current state of mind view a culture or a species
through its technology.
Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we? Did
not pre-modern civiliation see the unknown through different eyes than we?
> Science survived
> Romanticism, it survived the reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the
> Luddites, it survived the discovery of the subconscious, it survived the
> loss of mechanistic determinism, and it will probably survive Kibology
> by the skin of its teeth. It is incredibly robust.
I just think there are other directions that might serve us, well, us
meaning me, a little better. Kibology is not the least of them.
Kibology, as an incredibly common (mutual) context (HIVEMIND) between a
very small group of people is really rather comforting, as religions go,
and understanding Kibology is as enlightening and challenging as trying to
understand, say, duality of light.
> Modernism was itself, in some ways, a kind of synthesis of the Romantic
> reaction of the 19th century with the rationalist ideas that had preceded
> it. Much of what people call "Postmodernism" is basically *the same thing*
> as Modernism, only its proponents don't realize it!
It's true, since "postmodernism" (a word which is starting to have as much
meaning as "alternative music") necessarily implies a progressive "next
step", something that would only be totally understood by modernists.
> The formal structure we call science may well die out sometime in the near
> or far future. But the basic ideas-- that you can find things out by
> looking around and trying stuff, and that anything you claim to know for
> sure ought to still work if somebody else does it-- have been with us for
> a very long time. Killing that off would take a concerted effort.
Do you think that science would survive a good nuclear or biological war?
When people need to rely on survival, how much time would they spend on
esoteric research? Example one is the world of Mad MAx, where science is
pretty much toast. Example two is Foundation, where science is..well,
different things to different people. Counterexample is David Brin's _The
Postman_ (not to be confused with Il Postino).
> > So what now? I need to survive and get a job, so philosophy is out. I
> > don't much like writing anyway. I need to get something I can live with,
> > so Astronomy is... um. I don't know where astronomy is. It's something
> > I love, and I can't really live without it. IT's a part of my whole, but
> > critical thinking prevents me from really engaging it likes others,
> > AFAICT.
>
> Geez, do you think that everyone else who does science believes that the
> theory of the week is the True Essence of Reality?! If so, you've been
> reading too many pop books. *The whole idea* of science is that you
> try to shoot down everyone else's ideas, and your own! Well, that's at
> least half of it.
Right, right. No, I don't think that scientists actually believe they'll
find truth at the end of a detector. I know for a fact, however, that
they have told this to governments and media to get funding. Pop science
disgusts me, especially courtroom science. At any rate, Matt, if you
could sum up the *whole idea* of science in one sentence, my spider-senses
tell me it's not much of an idea. But you know that. Thanks for writing.
--
"...you've got a nice mixture of total nonsense, archaic attitudes toward the
universe in general, and zero-budget, low-key stiffness."
-Matt McIrvin <mmci...@world.std.com>
Louis Nick III sn...@u.washington.edu alt.religion.louis-nick
daan Strebe
In article
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
And the closer your model is to reality, the more you'll understand about
how to get nature to accomplish what you want it to. If you assume one
model is just as good as another, then bye bye. Test your theory of
gravity by walking off a cliff.
|>So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
|>compared to where I started?
You are nowhere, because you haven't any idea what the scientific
enterprise is about. Your quest for understanding is based on concepts
that nature cares nothing for. Your notion of truth corresponds to nothing
real. The only truths are mathematical, which are true by definition, and
physical, whose only accessible subsets are events and statistical
patterns.
|>> My standard refutation of (2) is to announce to the person stating it that
|>> I've just magically turned him into a tiny, slimy frog and his objections
|>> therefore sound like "croak, croak." There is *no way* to rationally
|>> refute it, since it explicitly rejects rationality. But completely
|>> *irrational* refutations work pretty well.
|>
|>You're showing your modernity. Rationalism (please, please don't blame me
|>for using an -ism once in a while. It's really hard to communicated
|>without them) is an element of the scientific quest for understanding.
|>What would Newton say of the bastardization of his science, now almost
|>atheistic, compared to when he worked on it? We would arrive at one
|>understanding, Newton at another, and we'd both be unable to realize and
|>perceive the other as being anything but wrong, because of its flawed
|>foundations.
What Newton would say is irrelevant. So is what you're saying.
'Foundations' mean nothing to nature. Whoever's theory produces more
accurate results is closer to the truth. Nature is the only arbiter, not
philosophy, especially your armchair variety.
|>> I think you expected way, way too much of science to begin with. It's
|>> like the story I once heard, probably a legend, of the student who asks
|>> his physics professor one day "Why does gravity exist?" The physics
|>> professor tells him that nobody knows why gravity exists--he could go
|>> on about general relativity, but nobody knows why general relativity is
|>> true. The student drops physics the next day. He expected too much.
|>
|>Science seeks understanding, no?
No. Science seeks to describe nature.
|>Yet scientists seek the usual human
|>things, power, money, and ultimately, some sort of satisfaction with life.
|>No problem there, of course. But what science expects of me is this:
|>Undying faith in the works of my predecessors. Einstein (or at least what
|>is allowed to survive of Einstein), Newton (same), Copernicus, etc.
|>Science is the accumulation of knowledge along a specific thread of
|>belief. But by standing on the shoulders of the aforementioned d00ds, I'm
|>not allowed to look down. Could we learn anything from scraping the
|>particle theory of matter altogether? Well, we'll never find out, will
|>we? Is it easy or hard to consider a wave getting fired through those
|>bubble chambers?
Do you have any idea how many scientists devote private time to examining
alternative theories? Do you have any idea why they don't tell you about
it? Because they failed to come to any better understanding. This tired
idea that scientists don't examine their roots is a myth loved by those
who think they know something about science through having read
popularized, castrated regurgitations of the sexier scientific theories --
the kind of ignorant people who inexplicably believe they can pull a
theory out of their asses and expect it to compete with theories that have
been verified and cross-verified in experiments spanning a vast web of
interconnected disciplines.
|><Copywritten Crackpot Theory> Did you know, that through a simple shift of
|>perspective, one could develop a working relativity model (one that works
|>as well as the current) by simply changing Einsteins assumption to the
|>constant length in all reference frames, as opposed to a constant speed of
|>light? And what have you? A new aether theory, one that casts Michaelson
|>Morley to the storms, and and it seems to account for light's behavior
|>(AFAICT) with regard to the photoelectric effect, doppler shifts, yada
|>yada. Oh, and you can travel faster than light. You'll note that the
|>restriction form FTL is in fact an assumption of Einstein's, not a
|>conclusion.</CCT>
An assumption that causes precede effects, and other physically verified
assumptions. I haven't any idea what the rest of your babble is supposed
to mean. Faster-than-light travel is possible if the principle of
relativity is relaxed... but the fact is, neither is ever observed.
|>> > Science, like all of Modernity, is a temporary paradigm, gone in perhaps
|>> > the next 500 years, when people will have only dim memories of the
|>> > workings of atomic bombs and space telescopes.
|>>
|>> How do you know this? No civilization has ever come up with 20th-century
|>> science and technology before (we'd have found their junk if they did).
|>
|>What was the biggest innovation of the 15th century? Nothing, of course,
|>because we, in our current state of mind view a culture or a species
|>through its technology.
Something, of course. Movable type, by Johann Gutenberg. The dissemination
of knowledge was thereby profoundly accelerated.
|>Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
Alien invaders? Are aliens part of your quest for truth?
|>Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we?
Because our understanding approaches whatever the truth is.
|>Did
|>not pre-modern civiliation see the unknown through different eyes than we?
Yes. And they were more wrong than we.
|>> Science survived
|>> Romanticism, it survived the reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the
|>> Luddites, it survived the discovery of the subconscious, it survived the
|>> loss of mechanistic determinism, and it will probably survive Kibology
|>> by the skin of its teeth. It is incredibly robust.
|>
|>I just think there are other directions that might serve us, well, us
|>meaning me, a little better. Kibology is not the least of them.
|>Kibology, as an incredibly common (mutual) context (HIVEMIND) between a
|>very small group of people is really rather comforting, as religions go,
|>and understanding Kibology is as enlightening and challenging as trying to
|>understand, say, duality of light.
No comment.
|>> Modernism was itself, in some ways, a kind of synthesis of the Romantic
|>> reaction of the 19th century with the rationalist ideas that had preceded
|>> it. Much of what people call "Postmodernism" is basically *the same thing*
|>> as Modernism, only its proponents don't realize it!
|>
|>It's true, since "postmodernism" (a word which is starting to have as much
|>meaning as "alternative music") necessarily implies a progressive "next
|>step", something that would only be totally understood by modernists.
Or anybody interested in refining their knowledge.
|>> The formal structure we call science may well die out sometime in the near
|>> or far future. But the basic ideas-- that you can find things out by
|>> looking around and trying stuff, and that anything you claim to know for
|>> sure ought to still work if somebody else does it-- have been with us for
|>> a very long time. Killing that off would take a concerted effort.
|>
|>Do you think that science would survive a good nuclear or biological war?
|>When people need to rely on survival, how much time would they spend on
|>esoteric research? Example one is the world of Mad MAx, where science is
|>pretty much toast. Example two is Foundation, where science is..well,
|>different things to different people. Counterexample is David Brin's _The
|>Postman_ (not to be confused with Il Postino).
You can't see the forest for the trees. Science has already survived the
only biological war that counts. Look around you, man. The average person
lives twice as long as his forebears, as a direct consequence of
application of scientific principles. Those who employ more scientific
principles statistically survive better (what does "rely on survival
mean??") because they can anticipate nature better, can exploit their
environment to fill their needs, and can outsmart whatever competitors or
enemies they might have. Science isn't some peculiar accident of our
species' cultural development. It's a straightforward extension of (nearly
tautological) Darwinian evolution applied to ideas.
|>> > So what now? I need to survive and get a job, so philosophy is out. I
|>> > don't much like writing anyway. I need to get something I can live with,
|>> > so Astronomy is... um. I don't know where astronomy is. It's something
|>> > I love, and I can't really live without it. IT's a part of my whole, but
|>> > critical thinking prevents me from really engaging it likes others,
|>> > AFAICT.
|>>
|>> Geez, do you think that everyone else who does science believes that the
|>> theory of the week is the True Essence of Reality?! If so, you've been
|>> reading too many pop books. *The whole idea* of science is that you
|>> try to shoot down everyone else's ideas, and your own! Well, that's at
|>> least half of it.
|>
|>Right, right. No, I don't think that scientists actually believe they'll
|>find truth at the end of a detector. I know for a fact, however, that
|>they have told this to governments and media to get funding.
You know nothing for a fact, apparently. Scientists do believe they'll
find truth at the end of a detector. They'll find events at the end of a
detector, and that's as close to truth as we'll ever get. So far, they've
delivered, and spectacularly. The media have their own agenda, and it is
not science.
|>Pop science
|>disgusts me, especially courtroom science.
Pop science does not disgust you. You love it. You base your opinion of
science on pop science. If that were not true you would know that quiet,
uncontroversial science receives vastly more funding than the few
instances you are fixating on when you say "courtroom science" and claim
that scientists tell governments and media stories about their purpose.
|>At any rate, Matt, if you
|>could sum up the *whole idea* of science in one sentence, my spider-senses
|>tell me it's not much of an idea. But you know that. Thanks for writing.
Spiders have more sense. They don't diseducate themselves, and they're
blessedly quiet.
daan
William S. Lawson
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>, Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
|> It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
|> model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
|> "better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
|> STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
|> Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
|> about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
|> ass), I have a model. EE has a model too, which basically consists of a
|> group of engineering-types (a model themselves) hovering over a buch of
|> compnents of mysterious value and purpose, making electrons (one more
|> model, particle or wave, etc.) jump through metaphysical hoops, which, I'm
|> informed, is what causes electrical action, something I perceive directly
|> and indirectly via a complicated system of sense(s) (model, model) and
|> brain.
May I suggest, as an act of faith in your chosen discipline, that you
perform the following experiment (or ritual, if you prefer): find two
screwdrivers (flat bladed, not Phillips), grasp them by the blades,
and insert them into opposite sides of a wall plug. You really have
no good reason for believing that anything untoward will happen.
On a serious note, for anyone fooled by your mock sincerity, we
believe models built on models built on models when they all consistently
give predictions accurate to many decimal places. Understanding, on
the other hand, is a purely intuitive process, and it is not clear
(or important) exactly what it means.
-- Bill Lawson
Michael Straight
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
>model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
>"better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
>STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
>Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
>about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
>ass), I have a model. EE has a model too, which basically consists of a
>group of engineering-types (a model themselves) hovering over a buch of
>compnents of mysterious value and purpose, making electrons (one more
>model, particle or wave, etc.) jump through metaphysical hoops, which, I'm
>informed, is what causes electrical action, something I perceive directly
>and indirectly via a complicated system of sense(s) (model, model) and
>brain.
>
>So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
>compared to where I started?
I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either science
has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
To say that we don't know exactly what an electron is does not mean that
we no nothing about electrons. Our ability to use them to send these
arguments to each other seems to be pretty strong evidence that "science"
is telling us something "true" about "the real world." Sure it's not
leading us to The Truth About Electrons, but I can't even imagine what
such a "truth" would be, much less draw us a map to find it.
Where are you compared to where you started? If you're a scientist,
you've made some observations that no one else had looked at or noticed
before. You and others may feel that looking at the universe in this way
is beautiful and worthwhile for its own sake. You or others may use your
observations to help people do something they didn't know how to do
before, or to do it better.
You'll probably also speculate and get into arguments about what your
observations "mean," what stars are "really" like inside, what an electron
is, etc. Again, many feel these speculations are beautiful and worthwhile
in their own right, even though they are probably not "true," but also not
beautiful in the same way as pure fiction.
The beauty comes from creating a model or description that seems *closer*
to reality that a random fiction. The enjoyment is the, I think
justified, sense that we are interacting with the world, looking at it,
talking about it, never fully "understanding" it (whatever that means),
but not just creating pure fiction (although there is a different joy
available in creating fiction). The more you know about observations
people have made and can compare the model to those observations, the more
you can appreciate the "beauty" of the model.
From a more utilitarian standpoint, such models are frequently helpful in
getting the world to do what we want, and that is why we generally give
people more money to do it than to create other works of art.
If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
religious experiences of reality, not mediated by the senses. My
experience, however, has been similar to that of science. I think there
are reasons to believe that some religious "models" are better
descriptions of reality than others, but have never had any sort of
unmediated experience of God or the universe that I could call The Truth.
Michael Straight is referring to the Happynet Manifesto, of course.
FLEOEVDETYHOEUPROEONREWMEILECSOFMOERSGTIRVAENRGEEARDSTVHIESBIITBTLHEEPSRIACYK
Ethical Mirth Gas/"I'm chaste alright."/Magic Hitler Hats/"Hath grace limits?"
"Irate Clam Thighs!"/Chili Hamster Tag/The Gilt Charisma/"I gather this calm."
me...@cars3.uchicago.edu
In article <4qpc0o$s...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
>In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
>Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
>>model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
>>"better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
>>STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
>>Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
>>about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
>>ass), I have a model. EE has a model too, which basically consists of a
>>group of engineering-types (a model themselves) hovering over a buch of
>>compnents of mysterious value and purpose, making electrons (one more
>>model, particle or wave, etc.) jump through metaphysical hoops, which, I'm
>>informed, is what causes electrical action, something I perceive directly
>>and indirectly via a complicated system of sense(s) (model, model) and
>>brain.
>>
>>So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
>>compared to where I started?
>
>has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
>worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
>don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
>
excuse, namely "there is nothing to understand, it is worthless"
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
me...@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Louis Nick III
On 25 Jun 1996, William S. Lawson wrote:
> May I suggest, as an act of faith in your chosen discipline, that you
> perform the following experiment (or ritual, if you prefer): find two
> screwdrivers (flat bladed, not Phillips), grasp them by the blades,
> and insert them into opposite sides of a wall plug. You really have
> no good reason for believing that anything untoward will happen.
Actually, I have witnessed and experienced similar events. EE isn't a
complete mystery.
> On a serious note, for anyone fooled by your mock sincerity, we
> believe models built on models built on models when they all consistently
> give predictions accurate to many decimal places. Understanding, on
> the other hand, is a purely intuitive process, and it is not clear
> (or important) exactly what it means.
My mock sincerity? I've never been more serious, especially on USENET.
Predictions are swell, and some of the finest science.
But you'll admit, it appears, that understanding should be relegated to
the more philosophically inclined among scientists?
Louis Nick III
On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, daan Strebe wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> |>It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
> |>model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
> |>"better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
> |>STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
> |>Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
> |>about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
> |>ass), I have a model. EE has a model too, which basically consists of a
> |>group of engineering-types (a model themselves) hovering over a buch of
> |>compnents of mysterious value and purpose, making electrons (one more
> |>model, particle or wave, etc.) jump through metaphysical hoops, which, I'm
> |>informed, is what causes electrical action, something I perceive directly
> |>and indirectly via a complicated system of sense(s) (model, model) and
> |>brain.
>
> And the closer your model is to reality, the more you'll understand about
> how to get nature to accomplish what you want it to. If you assume one
> model is just as good as another, then bye bye. Test your theory of
> gravity by walking off a cliff.
I'd like to think, and I'd like you to know, that my model of gravity is
more than enough to make a prediction as to what would happen in such a
case, and the practise of such an exercise would be relegated for obvious
reasons to the realm of gedenkenexperiment.
> |>So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
> |>compared to where I started?
>
> You are nowhere, because you haven't any idea what the scientific
> enterprise is about. Your quest for understanding is based on concepts
> that nature cares nothing for. Your notion of truth corresponds to nothing
> real. The only truths are mathematical, which are true by definition, and
> physical, whose only accessible subsets are events and statistical
> patterns.
Mathematical, eh? That's one way of looking at it. Are you aware that
the philopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell took on the task of
proving the very validity of mathematics itself, and along with Ludwig
Wittgenstein discovered that such a thing could not be proven. To say it
can't be proven, of course, doesn't make it not so, you'll say. But it
should at least cast a bit of doubt, unless you wish to select your data,
your texts, to avoid this little inconveniance.
> |>You're showing your modernity. Rationalism (please, please don't blame me
> |>for using an -ism once in a while. It's really hard to communicated
> |>without them) is an element of the scientific quest for understanding.
> |>What would Newton say of the bastardization of his science, now almost
> |>atheistic, compared to when he worked on it? We would arrive at one
> |>understanding, Newton at another, and we'd both be unable to realize and
> |>perceive the other as being anything but wrong, because of its flawed
> |>foundations.
>
> What Newton would say is irrelevant. So is what you're saying.
Of course you'd see it that way. To me, however, there is a very real
possibility that you're wrong.
> 'Foundations' mean nothing to nature. Whoever's theory produces more
> accurate results is closer to the truth. Nature is the only arbiter, not
> philosophy, especially your armchair variety.
Being able to make predictions doesn't mean you're closer to understanding
nautre. Like the man said, somewhere in this thread, being able to
predict falling objects' accleration, speed, yada yada doesn't bring us
closer to the Truth about gravity. So, is Newton's theory of Universal
gravitation closer to the truth than the invisible wires theory of mutual
atttraction? No really, since they both work flawless, although one is
more difficult to calculate. As for my armchair philosophy, I'll try to
be more like Wittgenstein in the future, just to satisfy your need for a
degree beside my name before you believe a thing I say. If you're in any
science field, and have gone through the educational process, you know
that any bozo, even me, can get the worship and respect that follows
getting a PhD.
> |>> I think you expected way, way too much of science to begin with. It's
> |>> like the story I once heard, probably a legend, of the student who asks
> |>> his physics professor one day "Why does gravity exist?" The physics
> |>> professor tells him that nobody knows why gravity exists--he could go
> |>> on about general relativity, but nobody knows why general relativity is
> |>> true. The student drops physics the next day. He expected too much.
> |>
> |>Science seeks understanding, no?
>
> No. Science seeks to describe nature.
That's one way of looking at it. Science seeks to categorize nautre.
Science seeks to analyze nature. Science seeks grant money. Science
seeks a lot of things. Do you deny, however, the above statements?
Categorically?
> |>not allowed to look down. Could we learn anything from scraping the
> |>particle theory of matter altogether? Well, we'll never find out, will
> |>we? Is it easy or hard to consider a wave getting fired through those
> |>bubble chambers?
>
> Do you have any idea how many scientists devote private time to examining
> alternative theories? Do you have any idea why they don't tell you about
> it? Because they failed to come to any better understanding.
Because they'll be treated like crackpots. If Tully and Fisher came up
with a concept that shredded the Extragalactic distance scale, they'd
still be cast into the warren of loonies, previous work not-withstanding,
because the scientific community is very resistant to ideas that don't fit
with current work. Second, this private time doesn't get funded like
their "public" time's work does, it doesn't get acknowledged as having the
quality of professionalism, but gets categorized, modeled in people's
mind if you will, as being amateur, and therefore isn't important enough
to be acknowledged. If your little idea were true, then you would be
saying that not a single idea in this hjistroy of science was ever
conceived outside of the scientist's working time, and I know you know
that isn't true.
> This tired
> idea that scientists don't examine their roots is a myth loved by those
> who think they know something about science through having read
> popularized, castrated regurgitations of the sexier scientific theories --
> the kind of ignorant people who inexplicably believe they can pull a
> theory out of their asses and expect it to compete with theories that have
> been verified and cross-verified in experiments spanning a vast web of
> interconnected disciplines.
Of course, a type of people which you willingly add me to. Ignoring the
fact that a few people have done just that. Of course, these are the
notable scientifics, not the numerous researchers who only confirm details
or examine consequences of the big thinkers. These millions are the ones
that lack the philosophy that science must have.
> |><Copywritten Crackpot Theory> Did you know, that through a simple shift of
> |>restriction form FTL is in fact an assumption of Einstein's, not a
> |>conclusion.</CCT>
>
> An assumption that causes precede effects, and other physically verified
> assumptions. I haven't any idea what the rest of your babble is supposed
> to mean. Faster-than-light travel is possible if the principle of
> relativity is relaxed... but the fact is, neither is ever observed.
Special relativty is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Assumption: In all
frames of reference, one will observe the speed of light as constant.
Conclusion: There are no speeds at which light will deviate from a
constant speed. Never mind the fact that you are telling me that space
itself will bend and compress, heck no. It's light that remains the same.
Well, that's a nice bit of reasoning, but the answer is in the question.
Change the assumption: Length is constant at all velocities. Remove the
idea of proper length and introduce the idea of proper lightspeed.
Lightspeed is a relation between length and time, nothing more, but it
sure as hell isn't a velocity.
In fact, if we just removed the word lightspeed from the language, science
would improve immeasurably, I'd predict.
> |>> How do you know this? No civilization has ever come up with 20th-century
> |>> science and technology before (we'd have found their junk if they did).
> |>
> |>What was the biggest innovation of the 15th century? Nothing, of course,
> |>because we, in our current state of mind view a culture or a species
> |>through its technology.
>
> Something, of course. Movable type, by Johann Gutenberg. The dissemination
> of knowledge was thereby profoundly accelerated.
You see a culture though it's technology. I'd say the Franciscan movement
of teh 13th and 14th centuries had a greater positive impact on the human
species than movable type.
> |>Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
>
> Alien invaders? Are aliens part of your quest for truth?
No, just understanding. Aliens are a part of human consciousness. they
don't have to exist in any sort of reality, but as long as people believe
they exist, and people do, then it must be understood as an element of
humanity. How we see aliens is a reflection of how we see a lot of
things. How we appraoche the unknown is such a relfection as well.
> |>Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we?
>
> Because our understanding approaches whatever the truth is.
Come on. Would you say that of theories 100 years old? No, you'd say they
were misguided, because the don't follow the same direction that we head
towards now. They appraoched a different truth.
> |>Did
> |>not pre-modern civiliation see the unknown through different eyes than we?
>
> Yes. And they were more wrong than we.
That, good sir, is your modernism. The elemental Progress just passed
over your keyboard when you wrote that. So we are, you'd say, wrong, yet
less wrong then before?
> |>It's true, since "postmodernism" (a word which is starting to have as much
> |>meaning as "alternative music") necessarily implies a progressive "next
> |>step", something that would only be totally understood by modernists.
>
> Or anybody interested in refining their knowledge.
Why don't you listen to yourself? Why is progress so necessary? Think
critically about progress and you'll discover that people didn't think
progressively 500 years ago. If you believe they did, just remember that
you interpret history through your progressive mind, as did all those who
taught you history.
Naturally, it is progress that would attempt to destroy my argument
against itself, because anything that fights progress must be destroyed by
it, so that it may, er, progress.
> |>Do you think that science would survive a good nuclear or biological war?
> |>When people need to rely on survival, how much time would they spend on
> |>esoteric research? Example one is the world of Mad MAx, where science is
> |>pretty much toast. Example two is Foundation, where science is..well,
> |>different things to different people. Counterexample is David Brin's _The
> |>Postman_ (not to be confused with Il Postino).
>
> You can't see the forest for the trees. Science has already survived the
> only biological war that counts. Look around you, man. The average person
> lives twice as long as his forebears, as a direct consequence of
> application of scientific principles. Those who employ more scientific
> principles statistically survive better (what does "rely on survival
> mean??") because they can anticipate nature better, can exploit their
> environment to fill their needs, and can outsmart whatever competitors or
> enemies they might have. Science isn't some peculiar accident of our
> species' cultural development. It's a straightforward extension of (nearly
> tautological) Darwinian evolution applied to ideas.
Progress is motivated to create more minions that follow it's rule.
Progress is not a mind-set or a conspiracy or a beast, it's a system, able
to perpetuate by increasing its numbers. Are we, the species, of greater
quality now, suddenly, even though we've been around for 100,000 years?
Well, of course you'd think that.
> |>Right, right. No, I don't think that scientists actually believe they'll
> |>find truth at the end of a detector. I know for a fact, however, that
> |>they have told this to governments and media to get funding.
>
> You know nothing for a fact, apparently. Scientists do believe they'll
> find truth at the end of a detector. They'll find events at the end of a
> detector, and that's as close to truth as we'll ever get. So far, they've
> delivered, and spectacularly. The media have their own agenda, and it is
> not science.
They don't get truth without interpretiong data. Detector gives data,
data based on an enormous construction of assumptions, the majority of
which the scientist must carefully blind himself to. Science assembles
itself. Step one. Assume something, because you have nothing. Step two.
Tell everyone that these assumptions are true, and not merely premises.
Step three, have them construct and test various assumptiosn of their own.
The next generation will be taught that the working assumptions of this
generation are truths.
> |>Pop science
> |>disgusts me, especially courtroom science.
>
> Pop science does not disgust you. You love it. You base your opinion of
> science on pop science. If that were not true you would know that quiet,
> uncontroversial science receives vastly more funding than the few
> instances you are fixating on when you say "courtroom science" and claim
> that scientists tell governments and media stories about their purpose.
What about Comet Fever when Hyakutake came around. A fellow at my
university, not even an astronomer, was elected Comet Guru, for the sole
purpose of impressing the media that the astronomical community was using
the comet as a lot more than an enormous publicity event. Well, it
wasn't, in fact, a lot more.
> |>At any rate, Matt, if you
> |>could sum up the *whole idea* of science in one sentence, my spider-senses
> |>tell me it's not much of an idea. But you know that. Thanks for writing.
>
> Spiders have more sense. They don't diseducate themselves, and they're
> blessedly quiet.
Yes, and for the members of the old guard like you, they're easy to step
on.
Louis Nick III
On 25 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> >So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
> >compared to where I started?
>
> I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either science
> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
Not really. Either it explains or it does not.
> To say that we don't know exactly what an electron is does not mean that
> we no nothing about electrons. Our ability to use them to send these
> arguments to each other seems to be pretty strong evidence that "science"
> is telling us something "true" about "the real world." Sure it's not
> leading us to The Truth About Electrons, but I can't even imagine what
> such a "truth" would be, much less draw us a map to find it.
But the entire concept of the electron is an attempt to understand, or at
the very least an interpretation of, electrical phenomena. It's a model,
one of quantification of charge. But does it work flawlessly? No, we
still can't predict absolutely the behavoir of charge. And the quantum
theory may be so limited that it will never do so. Yet science will wait
for the next theory of electrical influence to arrive, instead of seeking
it.
> Where are you compared to where you started? If you're a scientist,
> you've made some observations that no one else had looked at or noticed
> before. You and others may feel that looking at the universe in this way
> is beautiful and worthwhile for its own sake. You or others may use your
> observations to help people do something they didn't know how to do
> before, or to do it better.
It depends, though, on what my individual taste for the "better" is.
Faster? Cheaper? Smoother? Safer? Which better would you like? It's
up to personal choice, not the objectivity of natural truth. So
ultimately, science is around to satisfy the scientist.
I'm not sure I have a problem with that.
> You'll probably also speculate and get into arguments about what your
> observations "mean," what stars are "really" like inside, what an electron
> is, etc. Again, many feel these speculations are beautiful and worthwhile
> in their own right, even though they are probably not "true," but also not
> beautiful in the same way as pure fiction.
True. There is a special place in one's heart for different types of
beauty. But when, ever, will you hear a scientist talk of how it's only
speculation about what goes on in the center of a star? His deathbed or
memoirs, and that's about it. You won't see it in a journal, you won't
see in the the New York Times Science section, and you won't hear them in
grant proposals. You won't find it in textbooks, and you won't find it
taught ANYWHERE. It's something that we all learn the hard way. So
what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
speculation?
> The beauty comes from creating a model or description that seems *closer*
> to reality that a random fiction. The enjoyment is the, I think
> justified, sense that we are interacting with the world, looking at it,
> talking about it, never fully "understanding" it (whatever that means),
> but not just creating pure fiction (although there is a different joy
> available in creating fiction). The more you know about observations
> people have made and can compare the model to those observations, the more
> you can appreciate the "beauty" of the model.
No argument. Well stated, in fact.
> From a more utilitarian standpoint, such models are frequently helpful in
> getting the world to do what we want, and that is why we generally give
> people more money to do it than to create other works of art.
Again, no argument.
> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What's the difference?
> religious experiences of reality, not mediated by the senses. My
> experience, however, has been similar to that of science. I think there
> are reasons to believe that some religious "models" are better
> descriptions of reality than others, but have never had any sort of
> unmediated experience of God or the universe that I could call The Truth.
Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
about truth, held by faith. Even a slightly different set of facts
creates a slightly different religion. In this sense, science is a
religion. It is (in the anthropological definition) a cosmology.
> Michael Straight is referring to the Happynet Manifesto, of course.
Point taken, I'll drag this out of the ark kicking and screaming soon
enough. Unless... you don't mind.
Bruce Ediger
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>What was the biggest innovation of the 15th century? Nothing, of course,
Jeez, even I know that lots of stuff was invented in the 15th century.
Firstly, they invented stuffed codpieces. That was way to bulgey, so
they invented pants. The innovative part was that they didn't fit!
The whole "Portuguese World Explorer" thing was a product of the 15th
Century - thank the Mighty 15th for Vasco Da Gama, Amerigo Vespucci
and Nelson Picquet. The Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, fer cryin'
out lout!
The vacation was a major innovation, originally developed and popular
only in the regions adjoining the Ottoman Empire, it eventually was
refined to the point where it was popular even in Europe!
And who can forget Transition Metals! All of them, invented in the
15th Century!
--
Try this in a "DOS Box" for fun and profit!!!
echo f 0:0 ffff 0 | debug
daan Strebe
In article
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
|>On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, daan Strebe wrote:
|>
|>> You are nowhere, because you haven't any idea what the scientific
|>> enterprise is about. Your quest for understanding is based on concepts
|>> that nature cares nothing for. Your notion of truth corresponds to nothing
|>> real. The only truths are mathematical, which are true by definition, and
|>> physical, whose only accessible subsets are events and statistical
|>> patterns.
|>
|>Mathematical, eh? That's one way of looking at it. Are you aware that
|>the philopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell took on the task of
|>proving the very validity of mathematics itself, and along with Ludwig
|>Wittgenstein discovered that such a thing could not be proven. To say it
|>can't be proven, of course, doesn't make it not so, you'll say. But it
|>should at least cast a bit of doubt, unless you wish to select your data,
|>your texts, to avoid this little inconveniance.
Sorry. Not surprisingly, you misunderstood. Read it again. Mathematical
truths are truths by definition. Bertrand Russel's program doesn't change
that; Goedel's proof doesn't change that. There might be mathematical
statements that cannot be proven, but those that can be proven are true,
by definition.
|>> What Newton would say is irrelevant. So is what you're saying.
|>
|>Of course you'd see it that way. To me, however, there is a very real
|>possibility that you're wrong.
|>
|>> 'Foundations' mean nothing to nature. Whoever's theory produces more
|>> accurate results is closer to the truth. Nature is the only arbiter, not
|>> philosophy, especially your armchair variety.
|>
|>Being able to make predictions doesn't mean you're closer to understanding
|>nautre.
And not being able to make predictions definitely means you're far away
from understanding nature, however you might define understanding.
|>Like the man said, somewhere in this thread, being able to
|>predict falling objects' accleration, speed, yada yada doesn't bring us
|>closer to the Truth about gravity. So, is Newton's theory of Universal
|>gravitation closer to the truth than the invisible wires theory of mutual
|>atttraction? No really, since they both work flawless, although one is
|>more difficult to calculate. As for my armchair philosophy, I'll try to
|>be more like Wittgenstein in the future, just to satisfy your need for a
|>degree beside my name before you believe a thing I say. If you're in any
|>science field, and have gone through the educational process, you know
|>that any bozo, even me, can get the worship and respect that follows
|>getting a PhD.
YOU are the one who decided that understanding nature is the scientific
enterprise, not scientists. Furthermore, you've given no definition of
'understanding'. You're just making things up. The reason science and
philosphy ever split into two disciplines is because metaphysics failed to
produce a single verifiable result. We haven't the slightest reason to
believe that whatever you are terming 'understanding' exists or ever will
exist.
|>> |>Science seeks understanding, no?
|>>
|>> No. Science seeks to describe nature.
|>
|>That's one way of looking at it. Science seeks to categorize nautre.
|>Science seeks to analyze nature. Science seeks grant money. Science
|>seeks a lot of things. Do you deny, however, the above statements?
|>
|>Categorically?
Yes. You have not defined 'understanding'. You don't know when you
'understand' something. You don't know when a computer 'understands'
something. 'Understand' is a useful word in everyday conversation. It's
useless if you need rigor.
|>> |>not allowed to look down. Could we learn anything from scraping the
|>> |>particle theory of matter altogether? Well, we'll never find out, will
|>> |>we? Is it easy or hard to consider a wave getting fired through those
|>> |>bubble chambers?
|>>
|>> Do you have any idea how many scientists devote private time to examining
|>> alternative theories? Do you have any idea why they don't tell you about
|>> it? Because they failed to come to any better understanding.
|>
|>Because they'll be treated like crackpots. If Tully and Fisher came up
|>with a concept that shredded the Extragalactic distance scale, they'd
|>still be cast into the warren of loonies, previous work not-withstanding,
|>because the scientific community is very resistant to ideas that don't fit
|>with current work. Second, this private time doesn't get funded like
|>their "public" time's work does, it doesn't get acknowledged as having the
|>quality of professionalism, but gets categorized, modeled in people's
|>mind if you will, as being amateur, and therefore isn't important enough
|>to be acknowledged. If your little idea were true, then you would be
|>saying that not a single idea in this hjistroy of science was ever
|>conceived outside of the scientist's working time, and I know you know
|>that isn't true.
Now you're inventing conspiracies. The very scientists who are working in
back rooms on their own time investigating their own private theories are
the same ones who will treat others who do the same as crackpots? Are you
listening to yourself? And by the way, did you know somebody's tapping
your phone?
If Tully and Fisher came up with *evidence* that shredded the
extragalactic distance scale, they would take the Nobel Prize. 'Concepts'
are valueless. Everybody has them, and for you to think that an
unsubstantiated concept has any scientific merit shows just how little you
understand about how science works and how it has achieved its successes.
People who expect professionals to waste time verifying, debunking, or
even listening to the delusions of the millions who can't be bothered to
learn real science are self-indulgent, have a sickly inflated senses of
self-importance, and have contributed nothing to scientific knowledge
except possibly in psychological studies of narcissism and other
delusions.
|>> This tired
|>> idea that scientists don't examine their roots is a myth loved by those
|>> who think they know something about science through having read
|>> popularized, castrated regurgitations of the sexier scientific theories --
|>> the kind of ignorant people who inexplicably believe they can pull a
|>> theory out of their asses and expect it to compete with theories that have
|>> been verified and cross-verified in experiments spanning a vast web of
|>> interconnected disciplines.
|>
|>Of course, a type of people which you willingly add me to. Ignoring the
|>fact that a few people have done just that. Of course, these are the
|>notable scientifics, not the numerous researchers who only confirm details
|>or examine consequences of the big thinkers. These millions are the ones
|>that lack the philosophy that science must have.
No. Nobody has done just that. Those who have revolutionized science were
all scientists. It has been centuries since any layman has contributed
anything to fundamental science. A scientist is defined by his
methodology, not by his credentials.
|>Special relativty is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Assumption: In all
|>frames of reference, one will observe the speed of light as constant.
|>Conclusion: There are no speeds at which light will deviate from a
|>constant speed. Never mind the fact that you are telling me that space
|>itself will bend and compress, heck no. It's light that remains the same.
|>
|>Well, that's a nice bit of reasoning, but the answer is in the question.
|>Change the assumption: Length is constant at all velocities. Remove the
|>idea of proper length and introduce the idea of proper lightspeed.
|>Lightspeed is a relation between length and time, nothing more, but it
|>sure as hell isn't a velocity.
You are a prime example of a purveyor of a useless concept, deluding
yourself into thinking your little idea somehow escaped consideration by
those who wrote the scientific tome. Sadly, the consequences predicted by
your theory don't exist in nature.
|>In fact, if we just removed the word lightspeed from the language, science
|>would improve immeasurably, I'd predict.
Okay. There's a prediction, but that doesn't make you a scientist. It's a
worthless prediction since you know it won't happen.
|>You see a culture though it's technology. I'd say the Franciscan movement
|>of teh 13th and 14th centuries had a greater positive impact on the human
|>species than movable type.
And I think linearly ranking achievements in an infinitely dimensional
world to be shallow and pointless. Saying 'movable type' was to humor you.
|>> |> Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
|>> |>
|>> Alien invaders? Are aliens part of your quest for truth?
|>
|>No, just understanding. Aliens are a part of human consciousness. they
|>don't have to exist in any sort of reality, but as long as people believe
|>they exist, and people do, then it must be understood as an element of
|>humanity. How we see aliens is a reflection of how we see a lot of
|>things. How we appraoche the unknown is such a relfection as well.
Liar. You asked why aliens would arrive in starships of technology. You're
weasling when you psychobabble 'human understanding'.
|>> |>Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we?
|>>
|>> Because our understanding approaches whatever the truth is.
|>
|>Come on. Would you say that of theories 100 years old? No, you'd say they
|>were misguided, because the don't follow the same direction that we head
|>towards now. They appraoched a different truth.
Liar. Theories a hundred years ago were better than those a century before
them. They weren't misguided. They were excellent theories, and now we
have better, and eventually we'll have better still. We'll never know 'the
truth', but nothing will stop us from coming unboundedly close to it.
|>> |>Did
|>> |>not pre-modern civiliation see the unknown through different eyes than we?
|>>
|>> Yes. And they were more wrong than we.
|>
|>That, good sir, is your modernism. The elemental Progress just passed
|>over your keyboard when you wrote that. So we are, you'd say, wrong, yet
|>less wrong then before?
Yup.
|>> |>It's true, since "postmodernism" (a word which is starting to have as much
|>> |>meaning as "alternative music") necessarily implies a progressive "next
|>> |>step", something that would only be totally understood by modernists.
|>>
|>> Or anybody interested in refining their knowledge.
|>
|>Why don't you listen to yourself? Why is progress so necessary? Think
|>critically about progress and you'll discover that people didn't think
|>progressively 500 years ago. If you believe they did, just remember that
|>you interpret history through your progressive mind, as did all those who
|>taught you history.
I don't care if people 'thought' progressively 500 years ago. They
*behaved* progressively. When they finally realized they were behaving
progressively, and what a powerful paradigm it was, they formalized it
into science. If you deny this than you are denying the human accumulation
of empirical knowledge. And if you deny that, then I have nothing more to
say to you because you have thought your way into idiocy. You might as
well invest your time and money in get-rich schemes.
And I taught myself history, good sir, because I was tired of morons with
various social agenda who tried to teach it to me.
|>Progress is motivated to create more minions that follow it's rule.
|>Progress is not a mind-set or a conspiracy or a beast, it's a system, able
|>to perpetuate by increasing its numbers. Are we, the species, of greater
|>quality now, suddenly, even though we've been around for 100,000 years?
|>
|>Well, of course you'd think that.
You're lying again. I never said anything about quality, or even
'progress'. I am calling the human accumulation of knowledge, and
paradigms to acquire knowledge, progress. Nothing else. And stating that
progress a system, able to perpetuate its numbers, shows just how natural
and powerful a system it is. If you were stupid enough to think that
science was going to provide you unending orgasmic bliss, or whatever
other state of being you think to have 'quality', then I don't even feel
sorry for your disappointment. That's outside the realm of science's
competence and never was meant or advertised to be otherwise.
|>> You know nothing for a fact, apparently. Scientists do believe they'll
|>> find truth at the end of a detector. They'll find events at the end of a
|>> detector, and that's as close to truth as we'll ever get. So far, they've
|>> delivered, and spectacularly. The media have their own agenda, and it is
|>> not science.
|>
|>They don't get truth without interpretiong data. Detector gives data,
|>data based on an enormous construction of assumptions, the majority of
|>which the scientist must carefully blind himself to. Science assembles
|>itself. Step one. Assume something, because you have nothing. Step two.
|>Tell everyone that these assumptions are true, and not merely premises.
|>Step three, have them construct and test various assumptiosn of their own.
|>The next generation will be taught that the working assumptions of this
|>generation are truths.
Lying assertions.
|>> |>Pop science
|>> |>disgusts me, especially courtroom science.
|>>
|>> Pop science does not disgust you. You love it. You base your opinion of
|>> science on pop science. If that were not true you would know that quiet,
|>> uncontroversial science receives vastly more funding than the few
|>> instances you are fixating on when you say "courtroom science" and claim
|>> that scientists tell governments and media stories about their purpose.
|>
|>What about Comet Fever when Hyakutake came around. A fellow at my
|>university, not even an astronomer, was elected Comet Guru, for the sole
|>purpose of impressing the media that the astronomical community was using
|>the comet as a lot more than an enormous publicity event. Well, it
|>wasn't, in fact, a lot more.
Hello? Are you hearing *anything* you're saying? The media hyped the
comet. The astronomers obliged with information. The public, or some parts
of it, apparently bought the hype, otherwise the media would have focused
on Whitewater or whatever else they thought might sell. Did the
astronomers study the comet? Yes. What more were they supposed to do? What
more did they *say* they would do?
You want me to think scientists to be immoral because they have to promote
themselves in order to secure funding? Okay. Fine. The homeless are
immoral. The aged are immoral. The whale-lovers are immoral. The children
are immoral. Minorities are immoral.
More like, *you* are immoral for criticizing an enterprise whose purpose
you lie to yourself about, whose methodology you don't understand, and
whose products -- including this forum -- you use daily without the
decency of simple gratitude. If you were really moral you'd purge yourself
of these evil influences, live in a cave on a mountain, and die in two
years of some nasty disease you've never even heard of.
daan
E Teflon Piano
> In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >It's not stupid in the least. Everybody has a picture, a cute little
> >model of reality in their head, and some parts are more detailed and
> >"better understood" bu the self, others are really vague. An example. The
> >STandard Model of a star is not so mysterious to me as the magic of
> >Electrical Engineering. On the other hand, I really know very little
> >about what actually happens inside a star (thermodynamic equilibrium my
> >ass), I have a model.
Dear Mr. Nick,
Science is for finding better ways to conduct war. Ballistics,
medicine, physiks, hydrodynamics, all of it. So stop trying to abuse
science as a philosophy. We need astronomy so we can nuke BEMs from
Androgyna 9 in Outer Space. And don't you forget it.
Quit all the angsting and get on with the biz of mapping the stars so
we can keep an eye on the threatening ones.
--E "James Burke is God" Teflon Piano
E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and
founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's
trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises'
tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole.
daan Strebe
In article <4qrdqn$f...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael
Straight) wrote:
|>In article
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
|>Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
|>>> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
|>>> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
|>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>>What's the difference?
|>
|>Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
|>people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
|>by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
|>you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
|>religion. I've found some religious models I think are better than
|>others, but I haven't experienced this kind of unmediated truth - I don't
|>know that I've looked very hard, either.
My God, Michael, have some courage. The difference between science and
every other system of thought is that science is falsifiable. The
significance of that seems utterly lost on Louis, but surely you already
understand it.
daan
Michael Straight
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
>
>> >So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
>> >compared to where I started?
>> I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either science
>> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
>> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
>> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
>Not really. Either it explains or it does not.
Well, if you have to put it that way, I'd argue that all the models we
make as we "do science" explain something and that no one creates a model
that doesn't explain something that we've observed. The next question is
how *well* a model explains our observations.
>> To say that we don't know exactly what an electron is does not mean that
>> we no nothing about electrons. Our ability to use them to send these
>> arguments to each other seems to be pretty strong evidence that "science"
>> is telling us something "true" about "the real world." Sure it's not
>> leading us to The Truth About Electrons, but I can't even imagine what
>> such a "truth" would be, much less draw us a map to find it.
>But the entire concept of the electron is an attempt to understand, or at
>the very least an interpretation of, electrical phenomena. It's a model,
>one of quantification of charge. But does it work flawlessly? No, we
>still can't predict absolutely the behavoir of charge. And the quantum
>theory may be so limited that it will never do so. Yet science will wait
>for the next theory of electrical influence to arrive, instead of seeking
>it.
Waiting for the next theory to arrive? Do you think quantum theory was
found under a rock somewhere? If you substitute "scientists" for
"science" in your last sentence and get rid of the mystical "arrive," you
will see that it is nonsense. "Yet scientists will wait for the next
theory of electrical influence to be worked out by scientists, instead of
seeking it."
>> Where are you compared to where you started? If you're a scientist,
>> you've made some observations that no one else had looked at or noticed
>> before. You and others may feel that looking at the universe in this way
>> is beautiful and worthwhile for its own sake. You or others may use your
>> observations to help people do something they didn't know how to do
>> before, or to do it better.
>It depends, though, on what my individual taste for the "better" is.
>Faster? Cheaper? Smoother? Safer? Which better would you like? It's
>up to personal choice, not the objectivity of natural truth. So
>ultimately, science is around to satisfy the scientist.
You're confusing ends with means here. One test of whether we've found out
something objective about nature is whether we can use that knowledge to
do something we want. You're right that "what we want" (our definition
of "better") is subjective, but that doesn't mean the "truths" we use to
get what we want are subjective.
I would say science is around (1) because it is Beautiful and Satisfying
to explore nature and this is a Good Thing in it's own right, and (2) to
give humanity tools to do Good Things for ourselves and each other. Yes
it often doesn't work that way, but that's the reasons I would give for
doing science, and I don't think both reasons are more than just
"satisfying the scientist."
>> You'll probably also speculate and get into arguments about what your
>> observations "mean," what stars are "really" like inside, what an electron
>> is, etc. Again, many feel these speculations are beautiful and worthwhile
>> in their own right, even though they are probably not "true," but also not
>> beautiful in the same way as pure fiction.
>
>True. There is a special place in one's heart for different types of
>beauty. But when, ever, will you hear a scientist talk of how it's only
>speculation about what goes on in the center of a star? His deathbed or
>memoirs, and that's about it. You won't see it in a journal, you won't
>see in the the New York Times Science section, and you won't hear them in
>grant proposals. You won't find it in textbooks, and you won't find it
>taught ANYWHERE. It's something that we all learn the hard way. So
>what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
>speculation?
Because it's not "only speculation" what's in the center of a star. We
have reasons (observations) to think our models are really explaining
something. If scientists couched every paragraph in tentativeness and
philososphy, they wouldn't get any science done. You can't have a good
argument over two competing explanations of a set of observations if both
sides spend half their time saying that, of course we can have no direct
knowledge of these things unmediated by our senses which are, of course
fallible, as are our methods of observing, blah blah blah. That's what
philosophers are for.
>> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
>> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>What's the difference?
Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
religion. I've found some religious models I think are better than
others, but I haven't experienced this kind of unmediated truth - I don't
know that I've looked very hard, either.
>Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
>about truth, held by faith. Even a slightly different set of facts
>creates a slightly different religion. In this sense, science is a
>religion. It is (in the anthropological definition) a cosmology.
Well, you have positivists/fundamentalists in both science and religion,
but there are others who believe that religious models are like scientific
models - attempts at explaining our observations about ourselves and the
universe, and that some are better explanations than others. As in
science you have debates over the observations (Did Jesus really come back
from the dead? Is desire really the source of suffering? Did an angel
really dictate the Qu'ran to Muhammed?) and over the models that explain
those observations (If Jesus was resurrected does that prove he was God?
If desire is the source of suffering, ought we extinguish our desires?).
And then there are mystics who claim to have a direct, unassailble contact
with God or the Universe - yet as soon as they put it into words for the
rest of us, it becomes a model, and, if they have really had such a
revelation, some models will be better expressions than others, but none
will really convey it in its fullness to those of us who have not had the
revelation. In fact, many such mystics say that even their direct
revelation was just a taste and not Truth expereinced in it's fullness.
>Point taken, I'll drag this out of the ark kicking and screaming soon
>enough. Unless... you don't mind.
You're Allowed. Every kibologist worth the name knows how to use a
killfile. That's what THE WORLDS LONGEST THREAD was for; it was a
conspiracy to weed out ark-wanabees who didn't know how to use a decent
newsreader (like Joel Furr).
Michael Straight has NEVER read a post he didn't want to.
William S. Lawson
In article <4qpc0o$s...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
|> In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
|> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
|> >So, where's the understanding? Where's the truth? And where am I
|> >compared to where I started?
|>
|> I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either science
|> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
|> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
|> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
His problem is that he likes throwing stones at hornets' nests to see how
big a reaction he can get.
The reason the false dichotomy is so popular is that it offers a quick-
and-dirty way of rejecting something that is inconvenient to what you
want to believe.
Both problems have much to do with psychology but nothing to do with
physics.
-- Bill Lawson
Oz
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washingt
on.edu>, Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes
>On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Oz wrote:
>
>> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes
>> >Science seeks understanding, no? Yet scientists seek the usual human
>> >things, power, money, and ultimately, some sort of satisfaction with life.
>> >No problem there, of course. But what science expects of me is this:
>> >Undying faith in the works of my predecessors. Einstein (or at least what
>> >is allowed to survive of Einstein), Newton (same), Copernicus, etc.
>> >Science is the accumulation of knowledge along a specific thread of
>> >belief. But by standing on the shoulders of the aforementioned d00ds, I'm
>> >particle theory of matter altogether? Well, we'll never find out, will
>> >we? Is it easy or hard to consider a wave getting fired through those
>> >bubble chambers?
>>
>> Fortunately it is wrong. About every practicing physicist is keeping a
>> close eye on any chance to show these are false because fame, a Nobel
>> Prize and a solid cast iron tenureship for life is the result of doing
>> so. Science certainly doesn't expect undying faith in your predecessors,
>> quite the contrary, but you had better be able to back up any deviation
>> with hard evidence.
>
>Of course, of course. First of all, the concept is not merely "Wrong", it
>is unacceptable. To physicists, or at least sci.physics. Science does,
>in fact, expect undying faith in the predecessors when one in an undergrad
>student. That is what I am.
It's not true of all univerities at all. You picked badly. However you
do need to have good teachers who explain the histories, whys and
wherefores. It has to be said that a major problem with cranks here (and
probably elsewhere) is they don't understand the basics or the reasons
why their modest efforts predict the wrong things. An elegant theory
that predicts things that don't happen is wrong. My personal suspicion
is that they aren't prepared (or able) to to the hard work that their
predecessors did to solve these difficult problems.
>
>I meant a good nuclear war. And the day that scientists start treating
>science as a religion, like they ought to, is the day I'll be accepting my
>award from the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
>
>> Or make or use flint tools, come to that.
>
>Flint tools is not science. Science is the rational approach towards
>understanding of phenomenon. USing flint is surely an engineer's job.
Personally I see no difference between physics and engineering.
-------------------------------
'Oz "When I knew little, all was certain. The more I learnt,
the less sure I was. Is this the uncertainty principle?"
Ben Weiner
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>What was the biggest innovation of the 15th century? Nothing, of course,
>because we, in our current state of mind view a culture or a species
>through its technology.
Huh? What you mean we, white man?
Well, to the Yurrupeans, North America was a hell of an innovation.
But something else happened around the same time which was far more
significant. I offer you one of my favorite quotations:
[In 1488 the Portuguese Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope
and began to explore the eastern coast of Africa.] To these European
sailors of the last years of the fifteenth century the coast of eastern
Africa could have seemed no less civilized than their own coast of
Portugal. In the matter of wealth and knowledge of a wider world it
must have seemed a great deal more civilized. [since the African cities
traded with India and China] ...
A southwestern monsoon carried them without mishap to India. There
they anchored in the Gulf of Cambay, off the city of Calicut, and were
met with understandable misgivings. Following their custom at unknown
ports, they sent ashore one of the convicts they carried for such
occasions; he met with a "Moor of Tunis," says the logbook, who could
speak Castilian and Genoese. This Moor of Tunis must have been a man of
parts: he at any rate was in no doubt of the meaning of European ships
in eastern waters. "Devil take thee," he is said to have greeted the
Portuguese. "What brought you hither?" It was, after all, one of
the big moments in history.
-- Basil Davidson, _The Lost Cities of Africa_
Keep in mind that sailing from Portugal to India was a technological
and economic feat easily comparable to whatever - the entire NASA moon
program, say. I'd be willing to bet it took a higher percentage of
15th-century Portuguese GNP to get Vasco da Gama to Calicut than it
did of US GNP to get Neil Armstrong to the Moon.
>Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
>Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we? Did
>not pre-modern civiliation see the unknown through different eyes than we?
Yeah, but? So? Realizing this - that our perceptions are
historically determined - doesn't mean you just give up. It means you
can try to think about what influence that has on us. It's just a
shibboleth that postmodernist thought brings everything down to a
level where all interpretations are equally constructed. Like most
shibboleths, it doesn't correspond to actual practice. (Sure, there
are people whose life's work is repeating the shibboleth over and
over, but they never say much that's interesting, and so are
eventually ignored.)
Here's another quotation, from two centuries later:
We told them [the Indians] that we know all these things through
written documents. These savages asked, ``Before you came to the
lands where we live, did you rightly know that we were here?''
We were obliged to say no. ``Then you don't know all things
through books, and they didn't tell you everything.''
--- Louis Hennepin (French explorer
of N. America), 1684
Ben
--
"All you can logically say about a guy who thinks
he's a poached egg is that he's in the minority." -- James Burke
beverley
>Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
>people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
>by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
>you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
>religion.
I'm not even sure religion is the word for it. [Ha. Now you're talking about
something that makes sense.] Spirituality? Religion is a convenient paradigm
overlay, and spirituality gets mingled up in religion.
Boil it down: Religion has claims that often end up being overly self-
contained and recursive. Spirituality requires leaps of faith to some degree
or another. [I just went to church. Can you tell?] Religion and spirituality
often intersect on points of truth, but go off in different directions
-- spirituality being largely experiential, religion legalistic. I've been
religious. It's hell.
Tangent: Michael, Louis: both of you want to go find _The Scandal Of The
Evangelical Mind_ by Mark Noll. Michael, Ed should be able to tell you where
to find it...
>And then there are mystics who claim to have a direct, unassailble contact
>with God or the Universe - yet as soon as they put it into words for the
>rest of us, it becomes a model, and, if they have really had such a
>revelation, some models will be better expressions than others, but none
>will really convey it in its fullness to those of us who have not had the
>revelation. In fact, many such mystics say that even their direct
>revelation was just a taste and not Truth expereinced in it's fullness.
It's REAL easy to think that it is, especially if you're a young, inex-
perienced mystic who has their world view seriously rocked by what goes
on. Such experiences, incidentally, have a tendency to become addictive
and to spiral downwards if you're not careful or disciplined about your
modus operandi; I hit bottom/burnout shortly before returning to/entering
Christianity largely because of stuff like that, and I'm no longer so
sure that any mystical experiences I had brought me any closer to under-
standing what went on. Crazy thing -- just when you think you get it,
you don't anymore.
Hubris and humility are perpetually at war in the souls of humans. I'm
convinced. One of the greater heresies is to say, "Hey, I get it now!"
because chances are in a few hours or days or weeks you won't. I don't know
that anything provides *real* answers to our mundane experience -- faith
can certainly give you a place to start, but we only have so much capacity
to grasp matters. Eventually the questions start, and the test of faith is
not always being able to answer X in your head, but being able to hold
strong to your convictions in the face of your internal mass of questions
poking holes in whatever truth you think you know.
I hold to the Niceno-Constantinopolean Creed, but if you asked me to give
you rational models or explanations or whatever for why I held that this
was true, I don't think I could do it confidently. I could tell you things
like how that faith affected the way I lead my life, I could tell you about
the benefits and drawbacks of the major lifestyle changes that took place,
I could discuss ritual and worship forms out the wazoo with you, I could
explain my problems with any number of churches and denominations. But there
is no effective way for me to give you a quantifiable reason as to why you
should believe what I believe save for the inevitable logical fallacy of
"Well, if you do believe what I believe, you won't go to hell, but if you
don't, if I'm right, you will, and if I'm wrong you won't -- still, why
take a chance?" which I utterly refuse to present...
I have had the experience of being the kid who walked around toting the NIV
and browbeating people with standard fundamentalist testimonial programming.
[obMST3K: "Did you know that Chevrolet has a wonderful plan for your life?"]
Proclamations of knowing the truth really backfired on me, because I couldn't
a) back them up outside of a self-referential standpoint b) communicate that
*truth* because it was so bound in both duty and substanceless model that
it would bounce off any previously held mindset and only reinforce negative
prejudices against the evangelical protestant model.
I still kneejerk to everything that being in the Baptist church pounded
into my head [the extent of the kneejerk reactions is something I'm only
now coming to terms with], because the grains of truth that were in the
religion, the ritual, the teachings of the social environment and the
concepts communicated through interaction with clergy/leadership were so
very bound in blindly accepting a number of things that I probably didn't
have enough life experience at the time to deny. To this day, when I hear
that I should change my life, I either am or believe that I am required to
alter my fundamental nature and character as opposed to the direction
those two take, for example; this gets me into a lot of trouble. I will
never be a sweet little corporate upper-middle-class WASPy evangelical.
That's not in me. I *can*, however, choose to live scandalously -- whether
or not my faith manifests the way people think it's supposed to look --
and embrace truth rather than cloaking myself in common perceptions of
what the manifestations are supposed to be. [This is an example, to my
mind, of spirituality vs. religion...] If I live the scandal, the fruits will
show somewhere down the road, but in the short term I may not have any kind
of outside confirmation that I am either desirable or effective as a member
of the Church [!church]. If I make the "required" external changes, I will
blend in smoothly, but my focus will turn sharply away from my goals and
the plunge into falsehood/the ensuing depression will eventually show through,
destroying whatever headway I may have made. . .
Now I'm rambling. Ah well.
>>Point taken, I'll drag this out of the ark kicking and screaming soon
>>enough. Unless... you don't mind.
>
>You're Allowed. Every kibologist worth the name knows how to use a
>killfile. That's what THE WORLDS LONGEST THREAD was for; it was a
>conspiracy to weed out ark-wanabees who didn't know how to use a decent
>newsreader (like Joel Furr).
And if too many people complain, come over to AFW. We dig it.
--
Take to chance to advance. You might hallucinate. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.hallucinet.com/wednesday -=- http://www.tezcat.com/~wednsday
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bev White -=- wedn...@tezcat.com
Michael Straight
Eli M. Balin <elib...@panix.com> wrote:
>Huge difference. Science's approach to describing the Universe is
>mutable, and will change drastically in the face of new evidence which
>supports a new model (examples being germ theory, a divisible atom, and
>evolutionary biology). Religion, on the other hand, will not change its
>assumptions. The methods by which it is followed might alter slightly,
>but the basic tenets on which the religion were founded, and the
>religion's view of the universe, as defined by those tenets, will not
>change. Anything which might suggest otherwise will be written off by the
>arbitrary fiat "God (or whatever) did it." A few hours of reading
>talk.origins can confirm this last part.
Maybe. Maybe it's just that religions, since they're dealing with bigger
questions, take longer to change models. I don't know of anyone who still
believes in Zeus or Thor in the same way that they were worshipped long
ago. Jesus and his followers introduced some "new models" that convinced
several Jews and "pagans" to see the universe differently such that they
were no longer recognized as Jews and "pagans." My impression is that
Buddha created a "new model" that changed the way many Hindus saw the
universe and did religion, although I know less about that.
>Not necessarily. Nothing new has popped up over the past 1500 years, in
>spite of an Earth which isn't in the center of the universe, a lack of
>crystal spheres, a universe which is 10*10^9 years old, rather than 6000,
>or (again) a divisible basic unit of matter/energy.
Tell that to the Mormons, although I can't say that any of the
observations you mention had much to do with the advent of Mormonism.
>"4. A particular system of faith and worship."
>
>This might almost work for science, except for that "faith" bit.
How much of what scientists tell you are you able to work out for yourself
and how much do you have to take on faith? I'm not saying you don't have
good reasons to believe what they tell you, but it's still faith.
>Mind you, if there is someplace where lab-coated and safety-goggled
>acolytes prostrate themselves in the bright blue glow of an open reactor
>while a gleaming chrome robot solemnly intones things like "O Planck,
>thou art Constant...," I'd like to know about it.
Lab technicians at Bay Labs are required to do that, except we have to say
"O Doctorb, thou art not a Crackpot..."
Michael Straight is curator of alt.sci.joe-bay and a Nice Fellow at Bay labs.
Michael Straight
daan Strebe <Str...@AOL.COM> wrote:
>In article <4qrdqn$f...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael
>Straight) wrote:
><Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
>|>Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>|>>> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
>|>>> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
>|>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>|>>What's the difference?
>|>
>|>Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
>|>people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
>|>by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
>|>you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
>|>religion. I've found some religious models I think are better than
>|>others, but I haven't experienced this kind of unmediated truth - I don't
>|>know that I've looked very hard, either.
>My God, Michael, have some courage. The difference between science and
>every other system of thought is that science is falsifiable. The
>significance of that seems utterly lost on Louis, but surely you already
>understand it.
What's so courageous about spouting the conventional wisdom? Religion
can be falsifable too - look at the Jehovah's witnesses who predicted
several dates for the end of the world that have already passed.
More to the point, if you'd quoted the above in context you can see that I
was addressing Louis's seeming desire for Truth rather than the limited
models that science can offer, and it was in that respect that I suggested
science and religion might be on equal footing. Religion more frequently
*claims* to offer Unmediated Truth, whereas scientists who know what they're
talking about make more limited claims about what we can know through our
senses.
Michael Straight removed sci.astro from the Newsgroups line by request.
me...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>
>How much of what scientists tell you are you able to work out for yourself
>and how much do you have to take on faith? I'm not saying you don't have
>good reasons to believe what they tell you, but it's still faith.
>
mathematical part of physics goes, I always check the calculations (or
at least key points) for myself, I take nothing on faith. With
experimental data it is indeed trickier since nobody can redo all the
experiments that were ever performed. But then you check for
consistency with other experimental data in existence and, if you have
doubts, you check the details of the experimental procedure in the
paper. If things would've accepted on faith then practically all the
papers submitted for publication would've been accepted by the
referees. But, if you check the numbers, you'll find out that it
isn't so.
Michael Straight
What you say may be true, but since I don't have enough math background to
do what you suggest, I'll have to take you're word for it. 99% of what we
(as individuals) know we know because somebody told us and we believed it.
I'm not saying we don't have good reasons for believing, or claiming that
we all believe everything we hear indiscriminately, but it's still belief.
For me to believe that, say, neutrinos exist, I have to either take the
word of physicists like yourself on faith or I would have to invest a few
years learning math and physics in order to prove it to myself, which
would be something of a leap of faith as well -- faith that spending all
that time learning physics would give me an answer to my question about
neutrinos. I'm not saying that such belief/faith is irrational or
arbitrary, I think there are good reasons I believe in neutrinos and not
in Abian's "time has inertia" stuff, but at some level it boils down to
having more faith in mainstream scientists than in Abian.
Michael Straight has no time for inertia.
Louis Nick III
> Michael Straight <stra...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
> >And then there are mystics who claim to have a direct, unassailble contact
> >with God or the Universe - yet as soon as they put it into words for the
> >rest of us, it becomes a model, and, if they have really had such a
> >revelation, some models will be better expressions than others, but none
> >will really convey it in its fullness to those of us who have not had the
> >revelation. In fact, many such mystics say that even their direct
> >revelation was just a taste and not Truth expereinced in it's fullness.
>
> It's REAL easy to think that it is, especially if you're a young, inex-
> perienced mystic who has their world view seriously rocked by what goes
> on.
Story of my life about 8 months ago. But nobody would respect a
scientist-in-training as a mystic. <Vespa> Nobody! NOBODY! </Vespa>
[Beautiful and only slightly rambing post chopped]
> >>Point taken, I'll drag this out of the ark kicking and screaming soon
> >>enough. Unless... you don't mind.
> >
> >You're Allowed. Every kibologist worth the name knows how to use a
> >killfile. That's what THE WORLDS LONGEST THREAD was for; it was a
> >conspiracy to weed out ark-wanabees who didn't know how to use a decent
> >newsreader (like Joel Furr).
>
> And if too many people complain, come over to AFW. We dig it.
Now is my chance to get arl-n the propagation it DESERVES!
Louis Nick III
> daan Strebe <Str...@AOL.COM> wrote:
> >stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) wrote:
> >|>Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >|>>> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
> >|>>> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
> >|>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >|>>What's the difference?
> >|>
> >|>Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
> >|>people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
> >|>by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
> >|>you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
> >|>religion. I've found some religious models I think are better than
> >|>others, but I haven't experienced this kind of unmediated truth - I don't
> >|>know that I've looked very hard, either.
>
> >My God, Michael, have some courage. The difference between science and
> >every other system of thought is that science is falsifiable. The
> >significance of that seems utterly lost on Louis, but surely you already
> >understand it.
>
> What's so courageous about spouting the conventional wisdom? Religion
> can be falsifable too - look at the Jehovah's witnesses who predicted
> several dates for the end of the world that have already passed.
>
> More to the point, if you'd quoted the above in context you can see that I
> was addressing Louis's seeming desire for Truth rather than the limited
> models that science can offer, and it was in that respect that I suggested
> science and religion might be on equal footing. Religion more frequently
> *claims* to offer Unmediated Truth, whereas scientists who know what they're
> talking about make more limited claims about what we can know through our
> senses.
I want a lot of things, and although truth would be really swell (I think
we'd all agree) I'd be confounded by the shear inability of any human to
beable to convey truth or any communication accurately. Which means that
I'd end up keeping truth to myself, and that's no good at all. Nobody
would believe me anyway. What would be real nice is if science in general
would not posture itself like a religion, knowing so much truth, telling
little because it's encrypted in jargon and data and all that. Scientists
of all people don't, in general, believe it is a religion, so why is it
that any public image of scientists (meant for non-scientists) will
display them as such?
I'd like it to stop. But I'm not trying so hard as to actaully get it
done.
Second, I'd like science to stop progress. The ultimate experiement, just
to see if it could be done.
Third, I'd like for science to rid itself of all the things that cause
people to hate religions. What these are, are necessarily an exercise to
the reader.
</soapbox, but not for long>
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> |>On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, daan Strebe wrote:>
> |>Mathematical, eh? That's one way of looking at it. Are you aware that
> |>the philopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell took on the task of
> |>proving the very validity of mathematics itself, and along with Ludwig
> |>Wittgenstein discovered that such a thing could not be proven. To say it
> |>can't be proven, of course, doesn't make it not so, you'll say. But it
> |>should at least cast a bit of doubt, unless you wish to select your data,
> |>your texts, to avoid this little inconveniance.
>
> Sorry. Not surprisingly, you misunderstood. Read it again. Mathematical
> truths are truths by definition. Bertrand Russel's program doesn't change
> that; Goedel's proof doesn't change that. There might be mathematical
> statements that cannot be proven, but those that can be proven are true,
> by definition.
But all mathematics are sets of conventions, basic reorganizations of the
same postulates, givens and whatever else you want to call them, things
that you can't challenge. Any attempt to apply mathematical truth to
something which is only thought to be consistant with mathematics, such as
the physical world, is invalid to a certain degree. What you have is a
set of rules that work perfectly in their own realm, the mathematical
realm, because they were designed (as well as the realm was designed) to
fit. What have you, but world of math? You don't have, necessarily
anything linking it to the physical realm, and any link you make will have
its own error. Mathematics is useless for an accurate, and I mean
ACCURATE representation of the physical world.
> |>Being able to make predictions doesn't mean you're closer to understanding
> |>nautre.
>
> And not being able to make predictions definitely means you're far away
> from understanding nature, however you might define understanding.
Not being able to make predictions merely means you don't understand
nature perfectly. Even numerous successful predictions could be an
elaborate set of coincidences. And even if you can predict, it does not
mean understanding, a grasp of the elements in play.
> YOU are the one who decided that understanding nature is the scientific
> enterprise, not scientists. Furthermore, you've given no definition of
> 'understanding'. You're just making things up. The reason science and
> philosphy ever split into two disciplines is because metaphysics failed to
> produce a single verifiable result. We haven't the slightest reason to
> believe that whatever you are terming 'understanding' exists or ever will
> exist.
And no reason to believe it does not exist. So why don't you live with
it, and I'll live with suspicious dark-matter and super-string theories.
At any rate, of course I'm making things up. Any ordered and constructed
argument would be totally lost in this medium, and it shouldn't take a
kibologist to tell you that. Understanding is a word, it means to you
whatever you take it to mean. Generally, it means whatever makes one
right and others wrong, because it is the self, the self's own beliefs
that are correct.
> |>That's one way of looking at it. Science seeks to categorize nautre.
> |>Science seeks to analyze nature. Science seeks grant money. Science
> |>seeks a lot of things. Do you deny, however, the above statements?
> |>
> |>Categorically?
>
> Yes. You have not defined 'understanding'. You don't know when you
> 'understand' something. You don't know when a computer 'understands'
> something. 'Understand' is a useful word in everyday conversation. It's
> useless if you need rigor.
This is USENET, who needs rigor? Perhaps I do know when a computer
"understands" something, but I'll never be able to get you to realize it.
Since you don't seem to share the same definition I do (whatever that is),
then we are speaking different languages, English notwithstanding.
> |>Because they'll be treated like crackpots. If Tully and Fisher came up
> |>with a concept that shredded the Extragalactic distance scale, they'd
> |>still be cast into the warren of loonies, previous work not-withstanding,
> |>because the scientific community is very resistant to ideas that don't fit
> |>with current work. Second, this private time doesn't get funded like
> |>their "public" time's work does, it doesn't get acknowledged as having the
> |>quality of professionalism, but gets categorized, modeled in people's
> |>mind if you will, as being amateur, and therefore isn't important enough
> |>to be acknowledged. If your little idea were true, then you would be
> |>saying that not a single idea in this hjistroy of science was ever
> |>conceived outside of the scientist's working time, and I know you know
> |>that isn't true.
>
> Now you're inventing conspiracies. The very scientists who are working in
> back rooms on their own time investigating their own private theories are
> the same ones who will treat others who do the same as crackpots? Are you
> listening to yourself? And by the way, did you know somebody's tapping
> your phone?
I'm really hoping somebody's tapping my phones, because that means that
this island has moved into the twentieth century of phone technology.
Conspiracies? It's not a conscious effort on anyone's part. The
scientific community represents a system, one which is thrown our of
equilibrium slightly when something challenges the core foundations, such
as Newtonianism, of the system. It does what systmes do, automatically,
and indescriminantly.
> If Tully and Fisher came up with *evidence* that shredded the
> extragalactic distance scale, they would take the Nobel Prize. 'Concepts'
> are valueless. Everybody has them, and for you to think that an
> unsubstantiated concept has any scientific merit shows just how little you
> understand about how science works and how it has achieved its successes.
It can have merit other than in the scientific realm, this concept, but
for you to see outside is a task greater than Nobel himself. At any rate,
what do you mean when you say "understand" how science works?
> People who expect professionals to waste time verifying, debunking, or
> even listening to the delusions of the millions who can't be bothered to
> learn real science are self-indulgent, have a sickly inflated senses of
> self-importance, and have contributed nothing to scientific knowledge
> except possibly in psychological studies of narcissism and other
> delusions.
Well, it's good that nobody is engaging in ignorant psychobabble in this
thread, I was starting to worry. I'm not just one of "people" to me, I'm
ME, greater in dimention than all others, just as you see yourself. And
it would offend you to your core as I cast you in with the rest of the
sci.* folks who just can't see past their noses when it comes to new
thought.
> |>Of course, a type of people which you willingly add me to. Ignoring the
> |>fact that a few people have done just that. Of course, these are the
> |>notable scientifics, not the numerous researchers who only confirm details
> |>or examine consequences of the big thinkers. These millions are the ones
> |>that lack the philosophy that science must have.
>
> No. Nobody has done just that. Those who have revolutionized science were
> all scientists. It has been centuries since any layman has contributed
> anything to fundamental science. A scientist is defined by his
> methodology, not by his credentials.
Not more then a century. Look up Oliver Heavyside. Besides, any such
layman, in order to be able to contribute, would necessarily be branded a
scientists by everyone but historians.
> |>Well, that's a nice bit of reasoning, but the answer is in the question.
> |>Change the assumption: Length is constant at all velocities. Remove the
> |>idea of proper length and introduce the idea of proper lightspeed.
> |>Lightspeed is a relation between length and time, nothing more, but it
> |>sure as hell isn't a velocity.
>
> You are a prime example of a purveyor of a useless concept, deluding
> yourself into thinking your little idea somehow escaped consideration by
> those who wrote the scientific tome. Sadly, the consequences predicted by
> your theory don't exist in nature.
Don't be absurd. My little theory is nearly identical to Einstein's,
viewing only velocity as a relation, and not a speed, like we're taught
explicitly. That's my understanding, at least. Why are you so frightened
to question Einstein? "Nobody's done it yet, so it'll never work?" Is
that your arguement?
> |>In fact, if we just removed the word lightspeed from the language, science
> |>would improve immeasurably, I'd predict.
>
> Okay. There's a prediction, but that doesn't make you a scientist. It's a
> worthless prediction since you know it won't happen.
Well, there goes the meaning of thought experiments. Time to let the cat
out of the bag.
> And I think linearly ranking achievements in an infinitely dimensional
> world to be shallow and pointless. Saying 'movable type' was to humor you.
I'm glad you were able to stoop to my level, then.
> |>> |> Why would alien invaders arrive in starships of technology?
> |>> |>
> |>> Alien invaders? Are aliens part of your quest for truth?
> |>
> |>No, just understanding. Aliens are a part of human consciousness. they
> |>don't have to exist in any sort of reality, but as long as people believe
> |>they exist, and people do, then it must be understood as an element of
> |>humanity. How we see aliens is a reflection of how we see a lot of
> |>things. How we appraoche the unknown is such a relfection as well.
>
> Liar. You asked why aliens would arrive in starships of technology. You're
> weasling when you psychobabble 'human understanding'.
1) To many people, aliens in starships DO EXIST. Just run over to
alt.alien.visitors for evidence ad nauseum.
2) The fact that these people believe in technology based starships, as
opposed to God's chariots, etc. is important text to point out that people
see the unknown, aliens, and glom onto that unknown the concept of
technology. "The aliens have come from other planets, therefore the must
be technologically superior."
Few people do not make that immediate connection. Because they are
speaking through their modernity. That which they have the most
experience with is what they learn to think with. Psychobabble nothing,
this is comparative history of ideas.
> |>> |>Why would anyone even share the same understanding of space as we?
> |>>
> |>> Because our understanding approaches whatever the truth is.
> |>
> |>Come on. Would you say that of theories 100 years old? No, you'd say they
> |>were misguided, because the don't follow the same direction that we head
> |>towards now. They appraoched a different truth.
>
> Liar. Theories a hundred years ago were better than those a century before
> them. They weren't misguided. They were excellent theories, and now we
> have better, and eventually we'll have better still. We'll never know 'the
> truth', but nothing will stop us from coming unboundedly close to it.
Of course they were misguided. I mean of course the ones that didn't
survive, numerous as they were, and not just the ones that progressed to
modern theory. What of Rutherford's "transmutation of elements?" What of
the work of Fitzgerald, and Drude? Are you saying that those brilliant
scientists were simply wrong? I'd just like to hear you say you're
smarter than them.
> |>That, good sir, is your modernism. The elemental Progress just passed
> |>over your keyboard when you wrote that. So we are, you'd say, wrong, yet
> |>less wrong then before?
>
> Yup.
A prediction made, and the answer matched the prediction. I knew you'd
say that, you have it written all over you. I imagine you've predicted
that I'll disagree. I'd hate to disappoint you.
> |>Why don't you listen to yourself? Why is progress so necessary? Think
> |>critically about progress and you'll discover that people didn't think
> |>progressively 500 years ago. If you believe they did, just remember that
> |>you interpret history through your progressive mind, as did all those who
> |>taught you history.
>
> I don't care if people 'thought' progressively 500 years ago. They
> *behaved* progressively. When they finally realized they were behaving
> progressively, and what a powerful paradigm it was, they formalized it
> into science. If you deny this than you are denying the human accumulation
> of empirical knowledge. And if you deny that, then I have nothing more to
> say to you because you have thought your way into idiocy. You might as
> well invest your time and money in get-rich schemes.
That's one way of looking at it. But if you think you can sum up a major
movement in history in one paragraph, you're twice the fool I thought. We
are, of course, talking about the same "infinitely dimentional world"
here?
Yes. I deny the sum of accumulated empirical knowledge. And I've made
over $14000 using MAKE.MONEY.FAST, and here's how:
> And I taught myself history, good sir, because I was tired of morons with
> various social agenda who tried to teach it to me.
And you imposed your own.
> |>Progress is motivated to create more minions that follow it's rule.
> |>Progress is not a mind-set or a conspiracy or a beast, it's a system, able
> |>to perpetuate by increasing its numbers. Are we, the species, of greater
> |>quality now, suddenly, even though we've been around for 100,000 years?
> |>
> |>Well, of course you'd think that.
>
> You're lying again. I never said anything about quality, or even
> 'progress'. I am calling the human accumulation of knowledge, and
> paradigms to acquire knowledge, progress. Nothing else. And stating that
> progress a system, able to perpetuate its numbers, shows just how natural
> and powerful a system it is.
I have no problem with that.
> If you were stupid enough to think that
> science was going to provide you unending orgasmic bliss, or whatever
> other state of being you think to have 'quality', then I don't even feel
> sorry for your disappointment. That's outside the realm of science's
> competence and never was meant or advertised to be otherwise.
Well, all those years of reading Popular Science gone to waste, eh?
That's PRECISELY how it is advertised, the substance of science itself be
damned. Stupid enough? Science is the opiate of the masses. Getting
trained in science is supposed to "open your eyes" to the inner workings
of the modern religion. And yet, I believe it closes them.
> |>They don't get truth without interpretiong data. Detector gives data,
> |>data based on an enormous construction of assumptions, the majority of
> |>which the scientist must carefully blind himself to. Science assembles
> |>itself. Step one. Assume something, because you have nothing. Step two.
> |>Tell everyone that these assumptions are true, and not merely premises.
> |>Step three, have them construct and test various assumptiosn of their own.
> |>The next generation will be taught that the working assumptions of this
> |>generation are truths.
>
> Lying assertions.
I see the Liar Liar Pants on Fire defense works well for you over in the
sci.* froups. We hold are arguments to a higher standard here in
alt.religion.kibology. Read _Beamtimes and Lifetimes_ by Sharon Traweek,
and see what a liar I am.
> |>What about Comet Fever when Hyakutake came around. A fellow at my
> |>university, not even an astronomer, was elected Comet Guru, for the sole
> |>purpose of impressing the media that the astronomical community was using
> |>the comet as a lot more than an enormous publicity event. Well, it
> |>wasn't, in fact, a lot more.
>
> Hello? Are you hearing *anything* you're saying? The media hyped the
> comet. The astronomers obliged with information. The public, or some parts
> of it, apparently bought the hype, otherwise the media would have focused
> on Whitewater or whatever else they thought might sell. Did the
> astronomers study the comet? Yes. What more were they supposed to do? What
> more did they *say* they would do?
Astronomy adviertise itself has knowing more, caring more and being more
than it is. That, IMO, sucks royal.
> You want me to think scientists to be immoral because they have to promote
> themselves in order to secure funding? Okay. Fine. The homeless are
> immoral. The aged are immoral. The whale-lovers are immoral. The children
> are immoral. Minorities are immoral.
No, but such promotion is /unscientific/, yet you'd never acknowledge
that. We all make sacrifices for our fields, some call it selling out,
other call it cashing in. That's not the point. The point is that
science would not, as a religion, sacrifice its product to stoop to its
own material needs. Science as a community grabs its ankles for grant
money. Do you see the disparity?
> More like, *you* are immoral for criticizing an enterprise whose purpose
> you lie to yourself about, whose methodology you don't understand, and
What do you mean by "understand" with regard to the methodology?
> whose products -- including this forum -- you use daily without the
> decency of simple gratitude. If you were really moral you'd purge yourself
> of these evil influences, live in a cave on a mountain, and die in two
> years of some nasty disease you've never even heard of.
On the other hand, maybe it's time for a reformation. No, make that a
Reformation. Heck, how about a REFORMATION! AT 11!
Louis Nick III
> :> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
> :> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
> :> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
> : Not really. Either it explains or it does not.
>
> readily apparent, or that it was explaining something that you didn't
> understand? The same `obviously false dichotomy' is constantly used to
> dismiss literary study[1], but it's unfailingly used by people to explain
> away their own inability to comprehend the topic at hand.
> : Yet science will wait
> : for the next theory of electrical influence to arrive, instead of seeking
> : it.
>
> ...and comparative literature will wait for the next theory of political
> influence to arrive, instead of seeking it. Eh?
Point taken, but it'll still be a while before comparative literature
is able to produce a scholar that is capable of thinking about things
without the influence of Liberlism (in the big sense, not the left sense).
> : beauty. But when, ever, will you hear a scientist talk of how it's only
> : speculation about what goes on in the center of a star? His deathbed or
> : memoirs, and that's about it. You won't see it in a journal, you won't
> : see in the the New York Times Science section, and you won't hear them in
> : grant proposals. You won't find it in textbooks, and you won't find it
> : taught ANYWHERE. It's something that we all learn the hard way.
>
> Bitter? Anyway, it's hardly that big a secret; one usually intuits (!)
> this from experience and applies it to everything else by some stage of
> adolescence; you notice that your area(s) of expertise are filled with
> innuendo, theories parading as facts, false scholars, false prophets, &c.
> -- & there isn't any reason why any other field should be different.
Who's bitter. It's the different between what science insists it is to
others and what it is to itself. Modern man respects science as a
religion, not because of what science actually does, but what he is
convinced science does, and that is discover Truth.
> Why, anybody who's spent a Thursday night drinking beer where I go to
> school knows full well that comparative literary study is nothing but
> `semantics and deliberate obfuscation' and that its jargon exists not
> because of abstract concepts that necessitate same, but to further the
> power of those who can manipulate said jargon.
Jargon is (in one perspective) the most important element of any field
because it is a language that defines the ability for anyone to
communicated with others, and jargon is a language that few enough people
speak that it is, obviously enough, 3L33T. So, by knowing enough
astronomy jargon, I can be said (by someone ignorant of astronomy) to be a
keeper of a great knowledge or that I can communicated with such keepers
of astronomical knowledge.
> : So
> : what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
> : speculation?
>
> I'm made more powerful through it.
Precisely. Which means that the scientific community is nothing more than
a massive political organization. In one perspective.
> : Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> : about truth, held by faith. Even a slightly different set of facts
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
> Oh, dear.
Sorry, is my grammar bugging you?
> [1] Note my subtle side-stepping of my ignorance of matters scientific.
That never stopped me before.
Louis Nick III
> Science is for finding better ways to conduct war. Ballistics,
> medicine, physiks, hydrodynamics, all of it. So stop trying to abuse
> science as a philosophy. We need astronomy so we can nuke BEMs from
> Androgyna 9 in Outer Space. And don't you forget it.
> Quit all the angsting and get on with the biz of mapping the stars so
> we can keep an eye on the threatening ones.
Dear Mr. Teflon Piano,
Cc: E. Teflon Piano
The other purpose of science is to exploit truth to make money.
Please bill me for your time.
> --E "James Burke is God" Teflon Piano
Oh yes.
me...@cars3.uchicago.edu
>
>What you say may be true, but since I don't have enough math background to
>do what you suggest, I'll have to take you're word for it. 99% of what we
>(as individuals) know we know because somebody told us and we believed it.
>I'm not saying we don't have good reasons for believing, or claiming that
>we all believe everything we hear indiscriminately, but it's still belief.
>
>For me to believe that, say, neutrinos exist, I have to either take the
>word of physicists like yourself on faith or I would have to invest a few
>years learning math and physics in order to prove it to myself, which
>would be something of a leap of faith as well -- faith that spending all
>that time learning physics would give me an answer to my question about
>neutrinos. I'm not saying that such belief/faith is irrational or
>arbitrary, I think there are good reasons I believe in neutrinos and not
>in Abian's "time has inertia" stuff, but at some level it boils down to
>having more faith in mainstream scientists than in Abian.
>
you end up accepting his opinion on faith. Certainly you're not going
to spend few years in a medical school to check things for yourself.
Similarly, you do not stop to run a stress calculation for a bridge
before you drive over it. You trust the people that designed and
built it. So, it boils down to the question of whether you do or
don't have a reason to trust a specific group of people.
That's however separate from the stuff I wrote about. A member of the
general public may (or may not) accept what science says, on faith.
From a scientist, though, more is expected.
daan Strebe
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
|>But all mathematics are sets of conventions, basic reorganizations of the
|>same postulates, givens and whatever else you want to call them, things
|>that you can't challenge. Any attempt to apply mathematical truth to
|>something which is only thought to be consistant with mathematics, such as
|>the physical world, is invalid to a certain degree.
That's a red herring. Meanwhile, mathematics is true by definition.
|>What you have is a
|>set of rules that work perfectly in their own realm, the mathematical
|>realm, because they were designed (as well as the realm was designed) to
|>fit. What have you, but world of math? You don't have, necessarily
|>anything linking it to the physical realm, and any link you make will have
|>its own error. Mathematics is useless for an accurate, and I mean
|>ACCURATE representation of the physical world.
An accurate representation of the physical world is the physical world.
Anything else is a map.
|>> And not being able to make predictions definitely means you're far away
|>> from understanding nature, however you might define understanding.
|>
|>Not being able to make predictions merely means you don't understand
|>nature perfectly. Even numerous successful predictions could be an
|>elaborate set of coincidences. And even if you can predict, it does not
|>mean understanding, a grasp of the elements in play.
Look. At some point one says, "Well. The sun has risen periodically for my
entire life. I might as well postulate that it will after another day's
span of time." That's as much as we can ever hope for. Your postulated
'understanding' means nothing. Whatever 'understanding' you are talking
about is a map, not the real thing, and I assure you it will never be as
accurate as a mathematical map.
|>> YOU are the one who decided that understanding nature is the scientific
|>> enterprise, not scientists. Furthermore, you've given no definition of
|>> 'understanding'. You're just making things up. The reason science and
|>> philosphy ever split into two disciplines is because metaphysics failed to
|>> produce a single verifiable result. We haven't the slightest reason to
|>> believe that whatever you are terming 'understanding' exists or ever will
|>> exist.
|>
|>And no reason to believe it does not exist. So why don't you live with
|>it, and I'll live with suspicious dark-matter and super-string theories.
Because dark-matter theories and superstring theories (while still highly
speculative) explain considerably more than your concept of
'understanding'.
Meanwhile, you are the one who decided that understanding nature is the
scientific enterprise, not scientists. Not surprisingly, you've changed
the subject again.
|>At any rate, of course I'm making things up. Any ordered and constructed
|>argument would be totally lost in this medium, and it shouldn't take a
|>kibologist to tell you that. Understanding is a word, it means to you
|>whatever you take it to mean. Generally, it means whatever makes one
|>right and others wrong, because it is the self, the self's own beliefs
|>that are correct.
You keep saying that. And nature doesn't give a damn. If you believe you
can fly, be my guest. Jump off a cliff. I'm not the arbiter of truth, and
neither is any other 'self'.
|>> Yes. You have not defined 'understanding'. You don't know when you
|>> 'understand' something. You don't know when a computer 'understands'
|>> something. 'Understand' is a useful word in everyday conversation. It's
|>> useless if you need rigor.
|>
|>This is USENET, who needs rigor? Perhaps I do know when a computer
|>"understands" something, but I'll never be able to get you to realize it.
|>Since you don't seem to share the same definition I do (whatever that is),
|>then we are speaking different languages, English notwithstanding.
You're speaking no language, since what you are saying corresponds to
nothing identifiable. 'Understanding' is complex and difficult to define,
but it does *not* mean any such thing as "belief", which is what you want
it to mean. They are two different words for a reason.
|>I'm really hoping somebody's tapping my phones, because that means that
|>this island has moved into the twentieth century of phone technology.
|>Conspiracies? It's not a conscious effort on anyone's part. The
|>scientific community represents a system, one which is thrown our of
|>equilibrium slightly when something challenges the core foundations, such
|>as Newtonianism, of the system. It does what systmes do, automatically,
|>and indescriminantly.
Then your observation that scientists censor themselves has no moral
significance. Nevertheless, your assertions about scientists being closed
to paradigm shifts is blatantly refuted by the entire history of science.
You believe what you wish, and you call it 'understanding'. This dooms you
to forever share your thoughts only with people who 'feel' the same as you
do, since you have rejected reason, the only universal basis for
communication.
|>> If Tully and Fisher came up with *evidence* that shredded the
|>> extragalactic distance scale, they would take the Nobel Prize. 'Concepts'
|>> are valueless. Everybody has them, and for you to think that an
|>> unsubstantiated concept has any scientific merit shows just how little you
|>> understand about how science works and how it has achieved its successes.
|>
|>It can have merit other than in the scientific realm, this concept, but
|>for you to see outside is a task greater than Nobel himself. At any rate,
|>what do you mean when you say "understand" how science works?
Meanwhile, you're trying to get me to buy another red herring. You were
hypothesizing about Tully and Fisher being ignored in the scientific
community if they came up with a concept that shredded extragalactic
distance scales, and decrying the scientific community for that. Now
you're saying the concept might have value elsewhere. Who disputed that?
What does that have to do with your original assertions?
|>> People who expect professionals to waste time verifying, debunking, or
|>> even listening to the delusions of the millions who can't be bothered to
|>> learn real science are self-indulgent, have a sickly inflated senses of
|>> self-importance, and have contributed nothing to scientific knowledge
|>> except possibly in psychological studies of narcissism and other
|>> delusions.
|>
|>Well, it's good that nobody is engaging in ignorant psychobabble in this
|>thread, I was starting to worry. I'm not just one of "people" to me, I'm
|>ME, greater in dimention than all others, just as you see yourself. And
|>it would offend you to your core as I cast you in with the rest of the
|>sci.* folks who just can't see past their noses when it comes to new
|>thought.
You've failed to display a single new thought yet, and so far I have no
reason to suspect you would recognize a new thought if you were exposed to
it. Meanwhile, very occasionally, a rare and gifted person will have a new
thought, and people will eventually be better off for it.
Look, until you prove yourself to be some sort of monster I see
considerable value for your existence -- in fact, those who know me know
that I delight in diversity. My problem with you is that you are a poser
and are attempting to diseducate people. I react very strongly to that.
You *don't* know what the scientific enterprise is (or else you are
deliberately lying about it); you *don't* understand scientific
methodology (or else you are deliberately lying about it); you assert
blatant falsehoods and then disqualify anyone from contradicting you on
the grounds that one's own beliefs are always correct. In other words, you
have plagiarized a system of thought that makes your private whims just as
legitimate as physical fact, and now you're proselytizing your phantasms.
If you can't see the connection between that and all the wars the world
has ever fought, all the divorces ever sanctioned, all the persecutions,
pograms, racism, and sexism, then I'm appalled, and galvanized to oppose
you.
It's even worse in a democracy. When you deprive people of the constancy
of reason, they will vote their prejudices, and they are perfectly
justified to do so. When people vote their prejudices, minorities lose.
|>> No. Nobody has done just that. Those who have revolutionized science were
|>> all scientists. It has been centuries since any layman has contributed
|>> anything to fundamental science. A scientist is defined by his
|>> methodology, not by his credentials.
|>
|>Not more then a century. Look up Oliver Heavyside. Besides, any such
|>layman, in order to be able to contribute, would necessarily be branded a
|>scientists by everyone but historians.
You've ignored what I said again. A scientist is a scientist by virtue of
methodology, not credentials, and *any* scientist would agree with that,
so I don't give a cockroach's booger what a historian might say. Heaviside
was a scientist. He didn't just pull his theory of the ionosphere out of
his ass. He studied physics and electromagnetism for 18 years before his
first substantial contributions in the field.
|>> You are a prime example of a purveyor of a useless concept, deluding
|>> yourself into thinking your little idea somehow escaped consideration by
|>> those who wrote the scientific tome. Sadly, the consequences predicted by
|>> your theory don't exist in nature.
|>
|>Don't be absurd. My little theory is nearly identical to Einstein's,
|>viewing only velocity as a relation, and not a speed, like we're taught
|>explicitly. That's my understanding, at least. Why are you so frightened
|>to question Einstein? "Nobody's done it yet, so it'll never work?" Is
|>that your arguement?
I've questioned Einstein plenty of times. I've played with altering the
postulates. I've derived the Lorentz transforms any number of ways. Either
your theory is isomorphic to Einstein's, or else it's a perturbation so
tiny it has little physical significance, or it's ad hoc at the boundary
conditions so that we haven't been able to test it yet, or else you have
thrown away the principle of relativity (an action unjustified by
experiment), or it contradicts experiment. Show me your theory. I'll show
you which of the above it is. But since I'm not inclined to waste time on
crackpots, if I do that with the results I predicted here, I will expect
in return a full retraction of your calumny of science, posted in these
newsgroups.
On second thought, nevermind. Since you don't accept reason as an arbiter,
your little theory is true by definition and nothing anybody can say, and
no experimental result, will change that.
|>1) To many people, aliens in starships DO EXIST. Just run over to
|>alt.alien.visitors for evidence ad nauseum.
No. Many people *believe* aliens in starships to exist.
|>2) The fact that these people believe in technology based starships, as
|>opposed to God's chariots, etc. is important text to point out that people
|>see the unknown, aliens, and glom onto that unknown the concept of
|>technology. "The aliens have come from other planets, therefore the must
|>be technologically superior."
|>Few people do not make that immediate connection. Because they are
|>speaking through their modernity.
You give way too little credit to "people". There is nothing profound
about the connection. A quick perusal of the science fiction shelf of your
local bookstore should convince you that humans have dreamed up
innumerable ideas of what aliens might be like, and plenty of them don't
involve flying saucers. Just maybe some people -- a lot of people -- are
brighter than you might think?
|>That which they have the most
|>experience with is what they learn to think with. Psychobabble nothing,
|>this is comparative history of ideas.
And so obvious as to hardly merit comment, much less a field of study.
|>> Liar. Theories a hundred years ago were better than those a century before
|>> them. They weren't misguided. They were excellent theories, and now we
|>> have better, and eventually we'll have better still. We'll never know 'the
|>> truth', but nothing will stop us from coming unboundedly close to it.
|>
|>Of course they were misguided. I mean of course the ones that didn't
|>survive, numerous as they were, and not just the ones that progressed to
|>modern theory. What of Rutherford's "transmutation of elements?" What of
|>the work of Fitzgerald, and Drude? Are you saying that those brilliant
|>scientists were simply wrong? I'd just like to hear you say you're
|>smarter than them.
I'm saying they did superbly well with what they had to work with. And now
we have better. Yet again, you're waving red herrings. The issue was
whether there has been progress, and the answer is yes. We are closer to
whatever truth might exist than we were a hundred years ago, and they were
closer than the century before them. Agreement between theory and results
has progressed superbly.
|>
|>> |>That, good sir, is your modernism. The elemental Progress just passed
|>> |>over your keyboard when you wrote that. So we are, you'd say, wrong, yet
|>> |>less wrong then before?
|>>
|>> Yup.
|>
|>A prediction made, and the answer matched the prediction. I knew you'd
|>say that, you have it written all over you. I imagine you've predicted
|>that I'll disagree. I'd hate to disappoint you.
Oh, congratulations. But I'm afraid you were wrong to imagine that I would
have predicted that you'll disagree. I never thought you were stupid
enough to miss an obvious character trait. Too bad you've selectively
forgotten that you failed in your prediction that I would think the state
of physical theory a hundred years ago to have been misguided. That's the
problem with mystics. They never remember their failures.
|>> I don't care if people 'thought' progressively 500 years ago. They
|>> *behaved* progressively. When they finally realized they were behaving
|>> progressively, and what a powerful paradigm it was, they formalized it
|>> into science. If you deny this than you are denying the human accumulation
|>> of empirical knowledge. And if you deny that, then I have nothing more to
|>> say to you because you have thought your way into idiocy. You might as
|>> well invest your time and money in get-rich schemes.
|>
|>That's one way of looking at it. But if you think you can sum up a major
|>movement in history in one paragraph, you're twice the fool I thought. We
|>are, of course, talking about the same "infinitely dimentional world"
|>here?
We are talking specifically about progressive thought, not an infinitely
dimensional world, and yes it can be summed up in one paragraph, just like
anything else that has been given a name. I'm not here to write books for
you to clabbily babble over.
|>Yes. I deny the sum of accumulated empirical knowledge. And I've made
|>over $14000 using MAKE.MONEY.FAST, and here's how:
Sarcasm becomes you.
|>> And I taught myself history, good sir, because I was tired of morons with
|>> various social agenda who tried to teach it to me.
|>
|>And you imposed your own.
Well, now, let's see. First you accuse me of belonging to the category of
people who toes the science line and can't disagree with Einstein, and now
you say I've made up my own social agenda for history because I don't toe
the lines of those with social agenda. According to your own principles, I
have done precisely the right thing. According to my own principles I've
done the scientific thing. The problem with people who have social agenda
is that they can't agree amongst themselves and have no way to come to
agreement. Which social agenda religion should I adopt as my own, hm?
Scientists are blessedly resourceful on the latter point.
|>> If you were stupid enough to think that
|>> science was going to provide you unending orgasmic bliss, or whatever
|>> other state of being you think to have 'quality', then I don't even feel
|>> sorry for your disappointment. That's outside the realm of science's
|>> competence and never was meant or advertised to be otherwise.
|>
|>Well, all those years of reading Popular Science gone to waste, eh?
|>That's PRECISELY how it is advertised, the substance of science itself be
|>damned. Stupid enough? Science is the opiate of the masses. Getting
|>trained in science is supposed to "open your eyes" to the inner workings
|>of the modern religion. And yet, I believe it closes them.
Well. There you have it. Science viewed through Popular Science. Did you
ever think to ask a scientist, rather than a journalist? Or are you one of
those inexplicably credulous fools who believes everything he reads in
mass media?
|>> |>They don't get truth without interpretiong data. Detector gives data,
|>> |>data based on an enormous construction of assumptions, the majority of
|>> |>which the scientist must carefully blind himself to. Science assembles
|>> |>itself. Step one. Assume something, because you have nothing. Step two.
|>> |>Tell everyone that these assumptions are true, and not merely premises.
|>> |>Step three, have them construct and test various assumptiosn of their own.
|>> |>The next generation will be taught that the working assumptions of this
|>> |>generation are truths.
|>>
|>> Lying assertions.
|>
|>I see the Liar Liar Pants on Fire defense works well for you over in the
|>sci.* froups. We hold are arguments to a higher standard here in
|>alt.religion.kibology. Read _Beamtimes and Lifetimes_ by Sharon Traweek,
|>and see what a liar I am.
Moron. It wasn't even worth responding to. I couldn't care less what
Sharon Traweek says about anything. If you want examples of something
going wrong even in science I can give you plenty. But your desperate need
to generalize that, and everything else you have said, to the entire
scientific enterprise doesn't make it true or even credible. Billions of
dollars in scientific research every year is conducted around the world
according to principles very different from what you outlined above.
|>> |>What about Comet Fever when Hyakutake came around. A fellow at my
|>> |>university, not even an astronomer, was elected Comet Guru, for the sole
|>> |>purpose of impressing the media that the astronomical community was using
|>> |>the comet as a lot more than an enormous publicity event. Well, it
|>> |>wasn't, in fact, a lot more.
|>>
|>> Hello? Are you hearing *anything* you're saying? The media hyped the
|>> comet. The astronomers obliged with information. The public, or some parts
|>> of it, apparently bought the hype, otherwise the media would have focused
|>> on Whitewater or whatever else they thought might sell. Did the
|>> astronomers study the comet? Yes. What more were they supposed to do? What
|>> more did they *say* they would do?
|>
|>Astronomy adviertise itself has knowing more, caring more and being more
|>than it is. That, IMO, sucks royal.
Liar. Astronomers advertise themselves as knowing more than others about
astronomy. Document your case if you expect to be called anything but a
liar.
|>> You want me to think scientists to be immoral because they have to promote
|>> themselves in order to secure funding? Okay. Fine. The homeless are
|>> immoral. The aged are immoral. The whale-lovers are immoral. The children
|>> are immoral. Minorities are immoral.
|>
|>No, but such promotion is /unscientific/, yet you'd never acknowledge
|>that. We all make sacrifices for our fields, some call it selling out,
|>other call it cashing in. That's not the point. The point is that
|>science would not, as a religion, sacrifice its product to stoop to its
|>own material needs. Science as a community grabs its ankles for grant
|>money. Do you see the disparity?
No. You really are dumber than I thought. Unlike an industrial enterprise,
science is directly dependent on society for funding. Scientists are
beggars. They always have been and always will be. Scientists tell people
their labors will bear technological fruits. They point to their past
successes. See that new car you are so proud of? See that telephone you
talk to grandmother with? See how you are warmer in the winter with less
cost? See... These are not deceptions. Science will continue to deliver
technology, and to do so they will continue to beg for money.
Your problem is that you don't, or don't want to, see the human value of
the fruits of science, and you're claiming scientists tell people they'll
be happier for their efforts. Well, science has nothing to say about that.
Scientists don't tell people they'll be happy with telephones and cars.
People who sell cars and telephones tell people that. Scientists just say
they'll deliver the technology, and they do.
|>> More like, *you* are immoral for criticizing an enterprise whose purpose
|>> you lie to yourself about, whose methodology you don't understand, and
|>
|>What do you mean by "understand" with regard to the methodology?
Your fabricated ouline on the scientist's methodology, several paragraphs
above, is proof of your ignorance.
|>> whose products -- including this forum -- you use daily without the
|>> decency of simple gratitude. If you were really moral you'd purge yourself
|>> of these evil influences, live in a cave on a mountain, and die in two
|>> years of some nasty disease you've never even heard of.
|>
|>On the other hand, maybe it's time for a reformation. No, make that a
|>Reformation. Heck, how about a REFORMATION! AT 11!
My main points are:
1) You are lying about the methodology of scientists, resorting to
hyperbole on top of instances that scientists themselves think
inappropriate.
2) You are lying about how scientists present themselves, providing
journalists' portraits as evidence.
3) You are rejecting the principles of reason, of objective facts and
inferences from fact, in favor of according equal value to
undifferentiated hallucinations of the individual mind. What value you
think reasoning with others in this forum might be baffles me.
4) You are intellectually dishonest in leverage the fruits of science
while disparaging the scientific enterprise.
I don't care to continue this. I'm quite busy in other pursuits, some of
which are scientific.
daan
Karlo Takki
elib...@panix.com (Eli M. Balin) writes:
> Mind you, if there is someplace where lab-coated and safety-goggled
> acolytes prostrate themselves in the bright blue glow of an open reactor
> while a gleaming chrome robot solemnly intones things like "O Planck,
> thou art Constant...," I'd like to know about it.
Um, MIT. Bldg. E-20, Rm. 203. Every Friday night. BYOB.
Karlo "Be there or b^2" Takki
Richard Crew
: Third, I'd like for science to rid itself of all the things that cause
: people to hate religions. What these are, are necessarily an exercise to
: the reader.
What they are, are not necessarily in "science," but just as likely in the
"religions" themselves. Or in those who profess them.
I do my best to be respectful for the religious views of others -- Oh, Lord,
do I try -- but there are some people who make it _real_ difficult. Makes me
want to, say, start clapping on the upbeat....
--Rich
--
Q. Why do Baptists not make love standing up?
A. Might lead to dancing.
--
One shudders at the notion that the Internet could become the least
common denominator -- where "decent" is defined by the Americans,
and "politically correct" by the Chinese.
--Jacques Gaillot, Bishop of Partenia
Richard Crew
: Michael Straight <stra...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
: >Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
: >people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
: >by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
: >you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
: >religion.
:
: I'm not even sure religion is the word for it. [Ha. Now you're talking about
: something that makes sense.] Spirituality? Religion is a convenient paradigm
: overlay, and spirituality gets mingled up in religion.
:
: Boil it down: Religion has claims that often end up being overly self-
: contained and recursive. Spirituality requires leaps of faith to some degree
: or another. [I just went to church. Can you tell?] Religion and spirituality
: often intersect on points of truth, but go off in different directions
: -- spirituality being largely experiential, religion legalistic. I've been
: religious. It's hell.
I'm not sure I would say that "religion" is "legalistic." Some religions
are, some aren't. More to the point, some _people_ are, and some aren't.
: Tangent: Michael, Louis: both of you want to go find _The Scandal Of The
: Evangelical Mind_ by Mark Noll. Michael, Ed should be able to tell you where
: to find it...
(The scandal being that there isn't one. Really -- that's the first sentence
of chapter one).
<substantial snip here>
: I hold to the Niceno-Constantinopolean Creed, but if you asked me to give
: you rational models or explanations or whatever for why I held that this
: was true, I don't think I could do it confidently. I could tell you things
: like how that faith affected the way I lead my life, I could tell you about
: the benefits and drawbacks of the major lifestyle changes that took place,
: I could discuss ritual and worship forms out the wazoo with you, I could
: explain my problems with any number of churches and denominations. But there
: is no effective way for me to give you a quantifiable reason as to why you
: should believe what I believe save for the inevitable logical fallacy of
: "Well, if you do believe what I believe, you won't go to hell, but if you
: don't, if I'm right, you will, and if I'm wrong you won't -- still, why
: take a chance?" which I utterly refuse to present...
Consider two sentences:
"I believe it will rain tomorrow"
"I believe that Jesus will come again to judge the quick and the dead"
Does the word "believe" mean the _same_ thing in both? I don't think so. If
someone said to me that these two sentences were basically the same, I would
think that he had missed the point. And not simply because the subject of
the second one concerns more serious matters. A discussion of the second
would involve "how ... faith affected the way I lead my life." Not so the
first.
Of course if you said it will rain tomorrow, people might reasonably ask
you why you think so. And if you can't give any other answer, other than
that you just think it's going to rain, then this is indeed
"self-referential." Is this the case with the second sentence? Only if you
think that it's basically the same sort of affair as the first.
<snip>
: I still kneejerk to everything that being in the Baptist church pounded
: into my head [the extent of the kneejerk reactions is something I'm only
: now coming to terms with], because the grains of truth that were in the
: religion, the ritual, the teachings of the social environment and the
: concepts communicated through interaction with clergy/leadership were so
: very bound in blindly accepting a number of things that I probably didn't
: have enough life experience at the time to deny.
Forgive me, but I'm reminded of a friend of mine trying explain the relation
between Judaism & Catholicism. "Same guilt, different holidays."
--Rich
------------------------------------------------------------------------
dmc
>>What's the difference?
>Huge difference. Science's approach to describing the Universe is
>mutable, and will change drastically in the face of new evidence which
>supports a new model (examples being germ theory, a divisible atom, and
>evolutionary biology). Religion, on the other hand, will not change its
>assumptions. The methods by which it is followed might alter slightly,
>but the basic tenets on which the religion were founded, and the
>religion's view of the universe, as defined by those tenets, will not
>change. Anything which might suggest otherwise will be written off by the
>arbitrary fiat "God (or whatever) did it." A few hours of reading
>talk.origins can confirm this last part.
I'm afraid you're missing some very good evidence to the contrary.
The Mormon church provides an "out" or a way to change. They use it
quite often.
The president of the church, since he has been directed by God to sit
in that position, cannot make a wrong decision. Everything decreed by
the president is acceptable by the Mormon God's standards. What does
that mean? It means that the Mormon church will evolve.
In the '70s, the president decreed that "negroes" could be members of
the church because M-God told him so. Apparently M-God had decided to
give them another chance after having been cast out of hell.*
Religion changed its assumptions.
Read the Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, and the other
Mormon books. Particularly entertaining is the history of "decrees"
that the president has made over the church's history. Funny how they
all seem to "fit" with current law and acceptable moral code in the
U.S.
dmc
K.M. Mennie
: On 27 Jun 1996, K.M. Mennie wrote:
: Point taken, but it'll still be a while before comparative literature
: is able to produce a scholar that is capable of thinking about things
: without the influence of Liberlism (in the big sense, not the left sense).
But that's absurd. It'll be a while before any discipline produces a scholar
free from the influence of anything he's ever been exposed to.
: > Bitter? Anyway, it's hardly that big a secret; one usually intuits (!)
: > this from experience and applies it to everything else by some stage of
: > adolescence; you notice that your area(s) of expertise are filled with
: > innuendo, theories parading as facts, false scholars, false prophets, &c.
: > -- & there isn't any reason why any other field should be different.
: Who's bitter. It's the different between what science insists it is to
: others and what it is to itself. Modern man respects science as a
: religion, not because of what science actually does, but what he is
: convinced science does, and that is discover Truth.
But you're a rarity -- here, at least -- in seeing science as a religion
in that sense. Like I said, it's not that big a secret.
: > : what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
: > : speculation?
: > I'm made more powerful through it.
: Precisely. Which means that the scientific community is nothing more than
: a massive political organization. In one perspective.
So what? Personally, I _like_ the idea of knowledge as power; I'm
enchanted with the idea that the stupid can be repressed through their
ideas that knowledge-of-jargon=knowledge and science=truth. If modern man
wants to look at the ivory tower with awe and fear instead of questions,
that's his problem. My ascent up the tower is made on the backs of stupid
people, and I love it. Anybody over the age of twelve who believes
everything he's told deserves to be repressed, &c.
--
<news:alt.fan.kia-mennie> <web:http://aaln.org/ht_lit/>
Douglas Glen Smith
Scient.. by Richard Cr...@archytas.du
>
> : Tangent: Michael, Louis: both of you want to go find _The Scandal Of The
> : Evangelical Mind_ by Mark Noll. Michael, Ed should be able to tell
you where
> : to find it...
>
> of chapter one).
>
I'm going to be a legalist and say that the first sentence is actually
"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an
evangelical mind." Perhaps a bit of a nitpick, but the very fact that
this book was written says that there is a little bit of an evangelical
mind out there.
**************************************************************************
* * Every now and then I seem to dream these dreams *
* Chip Smith * Where the orphans suckle and the slaves go free *
* * Touching that miraculous circumstance *
* ds...@andrew.cmu.edu * Where the blind ones see and the dry bones dance *
* * - Mark Heard - *
************http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/home/chip/home.html************
Michael Straight
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>we'd all agree) I'd be confounded by the shear inability of any human to
>beable to convey truth or any communication accurately. Which means that
>I'd end up keeping truth to myself, and that's no good at all. Nobody
>would believe me anyway.
I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because we
can't communicate infallibly we can't communicate at all. That just
seems silly to me. Are you really such a perfectionist that you refuse
to talk to me unless you can make me see *exactly* what you see?
Michael Straight thinks it's worth doing badly if it's worth doing at all.
Richard Crew
: I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
: postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because we
: can't communicate infallibly we can't communicate at all.
A 'classic error of postmodernism' !! The subject has been around long
enough so that something in it can be called 'classical' ??
But the phrase is very apt, for there are times when I it seems to
me that a lot of postmodernism is distinctly ... premodern. The last time
this happened, I was poking around in 'O Timothy'
(http://wayoflife.org/~dcloud/library/otim0001.htm),
and then immediately dove into 'Postmodern Culture'
(http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/contents.all.html).
Different metaphysics, same habits of mind.
: That just
: seems silly to me. Are you really such a perfectionist that you refuse
: to talk to me unless you can make me see *exactly* what you see?
As Wittgenstein pointed out when a number of postmodernists were still in
diapers, a demand for 'exactness' means nothing unless you are prepared to
say what you are willing to accept as an exact answer, an exact description,
etc. Check out his _Philosophical Investigations_ I.88.
--Rich
Richard Crew
: Excerpts from netnews.alt.fan.wednesday: 28-Jun-96 Re: Modernity is too
: Scient.. by Richard Cr...@archytas.du
: >
: > : Tangent: Michael, Louis: both of you want to go find _The Scandal Of The
: > : Evangelical Mind_ by Mark Noll. Michael, Ed should be able to tell
: you where
: > : to find it...
: > (The scandal being that there isn't one. Really -- that's the first sentence
: > of chapter one).
: >
:
:
: I'm going to be a legalist and say that the first sentence is actually
: "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an
: evangelical mind." Perhaps a bit of a nitpick, but the very fact that
: this book was written says that there is a little bit of an evangelical
: mind out there.
Well, then, be a legalist and pick as many nits as you like; we can always
make more.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence in the book that there is an
evangelical mind out there, but Noll's picture is still pretty dismal.
Ben Weiner
>> : Yet science will wait
>> : for the next theory of electrical influence to arrive, instead of seeking
>> : it.
Huh? How's it going to arrive? Swagger full-blown into town on a
horse, saying "ALL RIGHT YOU PEOPLE THE NEW THEORY OF ELECTRICAL
INFLUENCE IS HERE AND YOU BETTER DO WHAT IT WANTS!" (then get into a
shootout with Clint Eastwood).
Uh-uh. New theories get assembled piecemeal from fragments that people
come up with, which don't make complete sense by themselves, hunches based
on experimental results, and so on and so forth. They only appear to be
complete theories in hindsight. When you look back it's possible to
construct a narrative in which the new theory is a progressive and
logical step forward from the old. This is a highly B()GUS method
of narrative which sometimes gets called the "Whig interpretation
of history." It's very common.
(Note to experts, yes this is a simplification.)
>> ...and comparative literature will wait for the next theory of political
>> influence to arrive, instead of seeking it. Eh?
>Point taken, but it'll still be a while before comparative literature
>is able to produce a scholar that is capable of thinking about things
>without the influence of Liberlism (in the big sense, not the left sense).
Lukacs?
Maybe many critics in Asia?
Anyway it's unclear to me why comp lit should _need_ a scholar that is
capable of thinking about things without the influence of liberalism.
Of course, it might be interesting to see what they would say, but it
seems a scholar who was influenced by liberalism and _was aware of that_
would be more productive. Because a scholar who has never been influenced
by liberalism is possibly just poorly read.
>Who's bitter. It's the different between what science insists it is to
>others and what it is to itself. Modern man respects science as a
>religion, not because of what science actually does, but what he is
>convinced science does, and that is discover Truth.
If you want to rectify the public's general incomprehension of the
fact that science is a process, not a collection of True Facts, there
are worse things you could do than dedicate yourself to teaching the
public about science, without either dumbing it down or presenting it
as a series of near-revelations; or to, say, improving the sorry state
of USanian primary and secondary education. Unfortunately, teaching
science is a hell of a lot harder than either studying it or doing it.
Or you could just give up and decide being worshipped isn't such
a bad deal after all. If you can stand the disadvantages (long hours,
low pay, lots of people with no fashion sense).
>Precisely. Which means that the scientific community is nothing more than
>a massive political organization. In one perspective.
Congratulations! You are now ready to write a grant proposal!
Ben
--
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald
Weiner's Corollary: A scientific paper is a grant's way of getting grants.
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III (sn...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
> : Point taken, but it'll still be a while before comparative literature
> : is able to produce a scholar that is capable of thinking about things
> : without the influence of Liberlism (in the big sense, not the left sense).
>
> But that's absurd. It'll be a while before any discipline produces a scholar
> free from the influence of anything he's ever been exposed to.
Yeah, but scholar, as far as they can tell, free themselves to significant
degrees. It'll be hard to find one who wants to.
> : > Bitter? Anyway, it's hardly that big a secret; one usually intuits (!)
> : > this from experience and applies it to everything else by some stage of
> : > adolescence; you notice that your area(s) of expertise are filled with
> : > innuendo, theories parading as facts, false scholars, false prophets, &c.
> : > -- & there isn't any reason why any other field should be different.
> : Who's bitter. It's the different between what science insists it is to
> : others and what it is to itself. Modern man respects science as a
> : religion, not because of what science actually does, but what he is
> : convinced science does, and that is discover Truth.
>
> But you're a rarity -- here, at least -- in seeing science as a religion
> in that sense. Like I said, it's not that big a secret.
I just hate getting the worst of flack from boths sides. I've readily
told my astronomy profs that I approach the field as a religion, nothing
more. I could just as easily approach it as a game-rules persepctive, in
order to acheive whatever sinister Nobel aspirations I might have. Well,
easier said, but you get the idea.
> : > : what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
> : > : speculation?
> : > I'm made more powerful through it.
> : Precisely. Which means that the scientific community is nothing more than
> : a massive political organization. In one perspective.
>
> So what? Personally, I _like_ the idea of knowledge as power; I'm
> enchanted with the idea that the stupid can be repressed through their
> ideas that knowledge-of-jargon=knowledge and science=truth. If modern man
> wants to look at the ivory tower with awe and fear instead of questions,
> that's his problem. My ascent up the tower is made on the backs of stupid
> people, and I love it. Anybody over the age of twelve who believes
> everything he's told deserves to be repressed, &c.
The stupid will flounder in any case. The ignorant will flounder because
of the knowledge is power argument. But the same sort of <drive> that
makes us teach science is that which is presented to the ignorant masses,
that knowledge gained trhough science can and should and will be
dessimated (McElwaine, yada). But if knowleddge is power, than the
education of students of science as anything other than a faith-sustained
religion is contradictory to the goal-is-power notion. Why give aaway
power? Or rather, why does the scientific community give away power to
the ignorant masses?
Arg, this is hard to say. Do I come across on this at all?
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >I want a lot of things, and although truth would be really swell (I think
> >we'd all agree) I'd be confounded by the shear inability of any human to
> >beable to convey truth or any communication accurately. Which means that
> >I'd end up keeping truth to myself, and that's no good at all. Nobody
> >would believe me anyway.
>
> I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
> postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because we
> can't communicate infallibly we can't communicate at all. That just
> seems silly to me. Are you really such a perfectionist that you refuse
> to talk to me unless you can make me see *exactly* what you see?
No, of course not. I write on USENET, don't I? Certain concepts, such as
my thoughts, simply cannot be interpreted properly for the desired effect.
This means, of course, that I am a poor writer, not that writing is
useless. But what I can't communicate through writing at all is what's
generally important to me, concepts such as the value of revelation that
something has...how powerful is it? I can't communicate the shear volume
of information that I uselessly generate in my head; useless because
nobody can hear it (except the HIVEMIND).
And since nobody else can or does communicate such things to me, I can
only reason that nobody else has them. Yeah, it's a simplistic argument,
but I just don't perceive other people actually thinking, no matter how
much you all say you do. That's the difference, I'd argue, between the
self and the other. So, I resort, generally to quoting early twentieth
century german literature. (When I can remember any.)
Gordon Fitch
| : I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
| : postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because we
| : can't communicate infallibly we can't communicate at all.
| A 'classic error of postmodernism' !! The subject has been around long
| enough so that something in it can be called 'classical' ??
| ...
_Utne_Reader_ declared it dead in 1987. And _they're_ out
in Minnesota or somewhere.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >On 25 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> >> I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either science
> >> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe or it's
> >> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing. I
> >> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
>
> >Not really. Either it explains or it does not.
>
> Well, if you have to put it that way, I'd argue that all the models we
> make as we "do science" explain something and that no one creates a model
> that doesn't explain something that we've observed. The next question is
> how *well* a model explains our observations.
I wouldn't contest that. But in turn students are instructed that these
models are in fact the truth about the universe or whatever. I mean,
nobody (in his right mind, naturally) would attempt to contradict your
basic Copernican planetary orbital arrangment. The last major player to
do that was Velikovsky, and they still have a laugh about him over in
a.a.v and sci.astro.
But the model does not convey any sort of objective truth, despite what we
are taught tothat effect. Yes, it IS a waste to challenge these notions
for scientific reason. Yes, you WILL be considered a regular loony if you
do so. Yes, we HAVE to teach students taht this sort of thing is true, in
order taht they may move on to bigger and better things. But in the great
name of SCIENCE, it's wrong, I tellya. It's a lie to say that we know
these things, that we have a complete grasp of the "facts" involved, and
it's horseshit to say that the model can't be understood anyhow else.
Seriously, did Ptolemy's model work or not? Perhaps if he'd understood
ellipses like Kepler...
> >But the entire concept of the electron is an attempt to understand, or at
> >the very least an interpretation of, electrical phenomena. It's a model,
> >one of quantification of charge. But does it work flawlessly? No, we
> >still can't predict absolutely the behavoir of charge. And the quantum
> >theory may be so limited that it will never do so. Yet science will wait
> >for the next theory of electrical influence to arrive, instead of seeking
> >it.
>
> Waiting for the next theory to arrive? Do you think quantum theory was
> found under a rock somewhere? If you substitute "scientists" for
> "science" in your last sentence and get rid of the mystical "arrive," you
> will see that it is nonsense. "Yet scientists will wait for the next
> theory of electrical influence to be worked out by scientists, instead of
> seeking it."
I'm saying that science is progressing in the same old directions. Do you
see any effort to figure out not if, but why there are smaller and smaller
particles at the end of every new, powerful particle collision? What are
the _implications_of quark substructure (whether it exists or not)? What
questions cannot be answered by a particle theory that could be answered
by aether or wave or bozon theories?
> >It depends, though, on what my individual taste for the "better" is.
> >Faster? Cheaper? Smoother? Safer? Which better would you like? It's
> >up to personal choice, not the objectivity of natural truth. So
> >ultimately, science is around to satisfy the scientist.
>
> You're confusing ends with means here. One test of whether we've found out
> something objective about nature is whether we can use that knowledge to
> do something we want. You're right that "what we want" (our definition
> of "better") is subjective, but that doesn't mean the "truths" we use to
> get what we want are subjective.
Yes, but a grand portion of esoteric research (by convention, I'd imagine)
is wholly useless towards achieving anything except more esoterica. I
suppose if that is what we want, then that is "better." But better for
whom? <Enter discussion about how science should or shouldn't be bent to
serve a society or a State>
> I would say science is around (1) because it is Beautiful and Satisfying
> to explore nature and this is a Good Thing in it's own right, and (2) to
> give humanity tools to do Good Things for ourselves and each other. Yes
> it often doesn't work that way, but that's the reasons I would give for
> doing science, and I don't think both reasons are more than just
> "satisfying the scientist."
In that case, we would examine what drives a scientist. IS it a
compulsion to do Good Things, a need for knowledge, a desire for truth,
what? (Maybe we just like deriving things.)
> >So
> >what is th value of telling people that you know what is in fact only
> >speculation?
>
> Because it's not "only speculation" what's in the center of a star. We
> have reasons (observations) to think our models are really explaining
> something. If scientists couched every paragraph in tentativeness and
> philososphy, they wouldn't get any science done. You can't have a good
Nonsense. Scientists have already agreed what they will take for granted.
This si the substance of faith in science. Eh, not so much faith, but the
sort of things that we agree to agree on. Common context. We have to
agree upon what we will all accept as being true before we can get
anywhere. So we start with big assumptions, like the Cosmological
Prinicple of Isotropy and Homogeniety. Without it, we couldn't even
start, so scientists believe. (I'm not sure I agree, but I stress that
I'm not sure)
> argument over two competing explanations of a set of observations if both
> sides spend half their time saying that, of course we can have no direct
> knowledge of these things unmediated by our senses which are, of course
> fallible, as are our methods of observing, blah blah blah. That's what
> philosophers are for.
Why separate science from philosophy? Why can't one drive the other?
> >> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
> >> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >What's the difference?
>
> Maybe nothing. I meant that, in religion, you will find more claims by
> people to really KNOW God or the Universe in some direct way, not mediated
> by the senses. Science doesn't even claim to do that, so if that's what
> you're looking for - TRUTH - it seems like you might find it through
> religion. I've found some religious models I think are better than
> others, but I haven't experienced this kind of unmediated truth - I don't
> know that I've looked very hard, either.
Science does claim such to many, but not to the relevant few. It's just
the way things occur, when applying a concept of religion of truth or
belief to any sort of society of individuals, some must remain ignorant
out of necessity that they know other things (like agriculture and
government). In other words, FARMERS AND POLITICIANS ARE SCIENITIFIC
ILLIT'R'ITS AND SHOULD BE DESTROYED WHEN THE POST-QUANTUM REVLOUTION
COMES!
> >Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
> >about truth, held by faith. Even a slightly different set of facts
> >creates a slightly different religion. In this sense, science is a
> >religion. It is (in the anthropological definition) a cosmology.
>
> Well, you have positivists/fundamentalists in both science and religion,
> but there are others who believe that religious models are like scientific
> models - attempts at explaining our observations about ourselves and the
> universe, and that some are better explanations than others. As in
> science you have debates over the observations (Did Jesus really come back
> from the dead? Is desire really the source of suffering? Did an angel
> really dictate the Qu'ran to Muhammed?) and over the models that explain
> those observations (If Jesus was resurrected does that prove he was God?
> If desire is the source of suffering, ought we extinguish our desires?).
Gotta love'em.
> And then there are mystics who claim to have a direct, unassailble contact
> with God or the Universe - yet as soon as they put it into words for the
> rest of us, it becomes a model, and, if they have really had such a
> revelation, some models will be better expressions than others, but none
> will really convey it in its fullness to those of us who have not had the
> revelation. In fact, many such mystics say that even their direct
> revelation was just a taste and not Truth expereinced in it's fullness.
It helps to love'em. Thewy're much bearable this way. And well stated on
both counts, Michael. If this is a war, you're the closing thing I have
to an ally, and a worthy critic. Thanks for joining.
> >Point taken, I'll drag this out of the ark kicking and screaming soon
> >enough. Unless... you don't mind.
>
> You're Allowed. Every kibologist worth the name knows how to use a
> killfile. That's what THE WORLDS LONGEST THREAD was for; it was a
> conspiracy to weed out ark-wanabees who didn't know how to use a decent
> newsreader (like Joel Furr).
I never thought of TWLT actually having a purpose, but indeed, it did
teach me killfile skills, just as this thread no doubt educates the
readers of sci.* and alt.postmodern in the same way.
Richard Crew
: _Utne_Reader_ declared it dead in 1987. And _they're_ out
: in Minnesota or somewhere.
So what _are_ people doing now? I hope to God it's not
postpostmodernism....
Bruce Ediger
:I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
:postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because we
Isn't the Lesson of Information Theory just the opposite? THat is,
we can communicate, we just can't do so infallibly.
Of course, I suppose that Information Theory also says that we can
get as close to "infallible" as we want, as long as we are willing
to Pay the Cost in Bits.
--
Try this in a "DOS Box" for fun and profit!!!
echo f 0:0 ffff 0 | debug
Bruce Ediger
:Referring to postmodernism, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
: : _Utne_Reader_ declared it dead in 1987. And _they're_ out
: : in Minnesota or somewhere.
:
: So what _are_ people doing now? I hope to God it's not
: postpostmodernism....
Metamodernism. Everybody who practices it, gets a stiffy.
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >On 25 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> >
> >> If you need more "understanding" or "meaning" than that, I suggest that
> >> you try religion instead of science. Some people claim to have direct
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >What's the difference?
>
> Huge difference. Science's approach to describing the Universe is
> mutable, and will change drastically in the face of new evidence which
> supports a new model (examples being germ theory, a divisible atom, and
> evolutionary biology). Religion, on the other hand, will not change its
> assumptions. The methods by which it is followed might alter slightly,
> but the basic tenets on which the religion were founded, and the
> religion's view of the universe, as defined by those tenets, will not
> change. Anything which might suggest otherwise will be written off by the
> arbitrary fiat "God (or whatever) did it." A few hours of reading
> talk.origins can confirm this last part.
It's not really arbitrary. I mean, consider the perspect fo someone that
really believes (and why not?) that God created this eloborate universe
about 6000 years ago. Who are we, arrogant upstarts of science, to
challenge The Creator?
Chaos theory notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure that God is that which we
cannot perceive, which makes the presence God fairly moot. The reason I
mention chaos theory is that if God is unperceivable, He is also that
which we cannot account for, no matter what scale we try. God is in the
details, I'd say.
But obviously, He's not a Christian God, or a Muslim Allah, or a Kibo or
what not. And I'm not sure He's a Creator, but I couldn't say otherwise.
> >Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
> >about truth, held by faith.
>
> I have a bit of a problem with your use of the term "unassailable facts"
> with respect to religion. A)They're not facts, they're beliefs; B)Nothing
> is unassailable. It's only the insistence of faith (which, IMO, doesn't
> benefit critical thought) that makes the beliefs seem so.
One man's facts are another man's beliefs. Sometimes I just can't get
another to see it my way. Why? Because I can't understand what makes
them think they way they do, and I can't assume (although it's never
stopped me) that my thoughts could even be comprehended by another.
Yeah, it sounds like bs, and why not. But it is --I believe-- true.
> >Even a slightly different set of facts creates a slightly different
> >religion.
>
> Not necessarily. Nothing new has popped up over the past 1500 years, in
> spite of an Earth which isn't in the center of the universe, a lack of
> crystal spheres, a universe which is 10*10^9 years old, rather than 6000,
> or (again) a divisible basic unit of matter/energy.
Yes, but religion has definitely chaged in the last 1500 years. Aristotle
anyone?
> >In this sense, science is a religion. It is (in the anthropological
> >definition) a cosmology.
>
> According to the OED:
>
> "2. That branch of metaphysics which deals with the idea of the world as
> a totality of all phenomena in space and time."
>
> This, I suppose, is what you were thinking of. This is, however, hardly
> synonymous with religion.
Right. However, one's cosmology is usually included in one's religion.
Be it a scientific understanding of cosmology, or a spiritual one.
> From the OED, again:
>
> "RELIGION: [I'm only citing the definitions relevant to this discussion]
> 3. Action or conduct indicating a belief in, reverence for, and desire to
> please, a divine ruling power; the excercise or practice of rites or
> observances implying this."
>
> As far as I've been able to tell, science is nothing like this.
Criticize the language. First of all, I don't buy the "divine ruling
power" crap, Oxford or not. That would leave out what amny people
consider religions, such as Buddhism. Anyway, a divine ruling power could
a law or set of laws. Maybe a big TOE would gain worship.
> "4. A particular system of faith and worship."
>
> This might almost work for science, except for that "faith" bit.
It's a personal choice about whether you consider faith to be an everyday
trust in someone else's belief or if it's some grand mystical property.
> "5. Recognition on the part of man of some higher unseen power as hoaving
> control of his destiny, and as being entitled to obediance, reverence,
> and worship..."
>
> Same as with definition 3.
I'd say the FOURTH DIMENSION qualifies here as teh unseen power.
I can find for you people that worship time, that are fated and controlled
by it, and are powerless to deny (as far as I can tell) and do, in fact,
revere time.
> "6. Devotion to some principle; strict fidelity or faithfulness;
> conscientiousness; pious affection or attachment."
>
> This could certainly apply to the approach of some scientists to science,
> but could also apply to commerce, law, or good oral hygiene. None of
> those would be regarded as religions either.
Not by you. I would, in a Seattle Half-hour.
> Mind you, if there is someplace where lab-coated and safety-goggled
> acolytes prostrate themselves in the bright blue glow of an open reactor
> while a gleaming chrome robot solemnly intones things like "O Planck,
> thou art Constant...," I'd like to know about it.
Examine the formal religious text _I, Robot_ by the elder prophet Isaac
Asimov. I think you'll find something like that to your liking.
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> |>But all mathematics are sets of conventions, basic reorganizations of the
> |>same postulates, givens and whatever else you want to call them, things
> |>that you can't challenge. Any attempt to apply mathematical truth to
> |>something which is only thought to be consistant with mathematics, such as
> |>the physical world, is invalid to a certain degree.
>
> That's a red herring. Meanwhile, mathematics is true by definition.
In the realm of mathematics, yes. Big deal. That and $2.50 will score
you some coffee.
> |>What you have is a
> |>set of rules that work perfectly in their own realm, the mathematical
> |>realm, because they were designed (as well as the realm was designed) to
> |>fit. What have you, but world of math? You don't have, necessarily
> |>anything linking it to the physical realm, and any link you make will have
> |>its own error. Mathematics is useless for an accurate, and I mean
> |>ACCURATE representation of the physical world.
>
> An accurate representation of the physical world is the physical world.
> Anything else is a map.
Even a 1:1 scale map?
> |>Not being able to make predictions merely means you don't understand
> |>nature perfectly. Even numerous successful predictions could be an
> |>elaborate set of coincidences. And even if you can predict, it does not
> |>mean understanding, a grasp of the elements in play.
>
> Look. At some point one says, "Well. The sun has risen periodically for my
> entire life. I might as well postulate that it will after another day's
> span of time." That's as much as we can ever hope for. Your postulated
> 'understanding' means nothing. Whatever 'understanding' you are talking
> about is a map, not the real thing, and I assure you it will never be as
> accurate as a mathematical map.
If you follow the mathematical map, you will get lost. The map is only as
accurate as its reader is mathematically inclined. Ergo, most people
woudl be better off with a map that is more accurate for them. Exploring
the mathematical map's depth will only cause one to engage the question of
whether or not there isa bottom to the detail. We do the same with the
physical world, but I wonder if we'd arrive at the same answer.
> |>And no reason to believe it does not exist. So why don't you live with
> |>it, and I'll live with suspicious dark-matter and super-string theories.
>
> Because dark-matter theories and superstring theories (while still highly
> speculative) explain considerably more than your concept of
> 'understanding'.
My concept of "understanding" has the same apparent meaning as your word
"explain[ing]." How is it, precisely, that we know more after superstring
theories than before? The question "is there more to it" is unanswered
before and after.
> Meanwhile, you are the one who decided that understanding nature is the
> scientific enterprise, not scientists. Not surprisingly, you've changed
> the subject again.
Oh god, changing the subject? In USENET? Remember where you are. This
isn't the Great Debate, you know. Although it is close, because we are
too busy talkin about our own things to directly challenge the other.
> |>At any rate, of course I'm making things up. Any ordered and constructed
> |>argument would be totally lost in this medium, and it shouldn't take a
> |>kibologist to tell you that. Understanding is a word, it means to you
> |>whatever you take it to mean. Generally, it means whatever makes one
> |>right and others wrong, because it is the self, the self's own beliefs
> |>that are correct.
>
> You keep saying that. And nature doesn't give a damn. If you believe you
> can fly, be my guest. Jump off a cliff. I'm not the arbiter of truth, and
> neither is any other 'self'.
If I believe I can fly, sir, I most certainly will. A trip off a cliff,
and my beliefs could just change, however. Either way, I'm right the
whole time.
> |>This is USENET, who needs rigor? Perhaps I do know when a computer
> |>"understands" something, but I'll never be able to get you to realize it.
> |>Since you don't seem to share the same definition I do (whatever that is),
> |>then we are speaking different languages, English notwithstanding.
>
> You're speaking no language, since what you are saying corresponds to
> nothing identifiable. 'Understanding' is complex and difficult to define,
> but it does *not* mean any such thing as "belief", which is what you want
> it to mean. They are two different words for a reason.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means. I could go about three posts without using the word
"understanding" and you would keep coming back to it as though it was my
only argument. That works in alt.alien.visitors, but I don't much buy it.
Try to be a little more dynamic in these threads. Anyway, I'd love to
explain to you what "language" is to me, so that you might better
comprehend/grasp what I was attempting to say. On the other hand, I'd
love for you to join the ark so that HIVEMIND could take care of that for
me.
> |>I'm really hoping somebody's tapping my phones, because that means that
> |>this island has moved into the twentieth century of phone technology.
> |>Conspiracies? It's not a conscious effort on anyone's part. The
> |>scientific community represents a system, one which is thrown our of
> |>equilibrium slightly when something challenges the core foundations, such
> |>as Newtonianism, of the system. It does what systmes do, automatically,
> |>and indescriminantly.
>
> Then your observation that scientists censor themselves has no moral
> significance. Nevertheless, your assertions about scientists being closed
> to paradigm shifts is blatantly refuted by the entire history of science.
My god, did I just run into the judge of moral science? Do you REALLY
believe you can know the role of morality in science? Don't make me
laugh. Science is resistant to paradigm shifts (minor) and closed to
paradigm shifts (major). Could you really compare the change from a
classical to quantum theory with, say, Copernican to Velikovskian
planetary models? In ANY day and age?
> You believe what you wish, and you call it 'understanding'. This dooms you
> to forever share your thoughts only with people who 'feel' the same as you
> do, since you have rejected reason, the only universal basis for
> communication.
Ah, the great rationalist speaks. No, REASON is not the only answer, but
getting you to see that is obviously an excercise in futility. That's the
order of paradigms shifts (major) to which I refer. Challenge that, for a
change. Or maybe it's too close to you.
> |>It can have merit other than in the scientific realm, this concept, but
> |>for you to see outside is a task greater than Nobel himself. At any rate,
> |>what do you mean when you say "understand" how science works?
>
> Meanwhile, you're trying to get me to buy another red herring.
You seem to be in the market.
> You were
> hypothesizing about Tully and Fisher being ignored in the scientific
> community if they came up with a concept that shredded extragalactic
> distance scales, and decrying the scientific community for that. Now
> you're saying the concept might have value elsewhere. Who disputed that?
> What does that have to do with your original assertions?
I was hypothesizing aobut a lot of things. One another hand, however, I
wouldn't consider it hypothesis, because USENET is no place for scientific
method. Hrmm. Consider a culture that never invented the concept of
hypothesis, like the Chinese...but that's a discussion for another time.
At any rate, this thread is not an essay, so I'm not going to stick to
some asserted thesis like it's the only thing I should write about. This
is a thread. And a frayed one.
> |>Well, it's good that nobody is engaging in ignorant psychobabble in this
> |>thread, I was starting to worry. I'm not just one of "people" to me, I'm
> |>ME, greater in dimention than all others, just as you see yourself. And
> |>it would offend you to your core as I cast you in with the rest of the
> |>sci.* folks who just can't see past their noses when it comes to new
> |>thought.
>
> You've failed to display a single new thought yet, and so far I have no
> reason to suspect you would recognize a new thought if you were exposed to
> it. Meanwhile, very occasionally, a rare and gifted person will have a new
> thought, and people will eventually be better off for it.
Suppose there are no new thoughts? The only remaining thing to do would
be to make connectiosn between the old ones that nobody has seen before.
EVen you know that at most points in your life it is fairly absurd to
relish in the idea that a thought that strikes you hasn't been thought
sometime before. So why not operate under the assumption that there are
no knew thoughts (better, I'd say, then to try to find a new one)? People
have don it before, but there's no conflict. Make new connections.
That's how geniuses could be said to operate.
> Look, until you prove yourself to be some sort of monster I see
> considerable value for your existence -- in fact, those who know me know
> that I delight in diversity. My problem with you is that you are a poser
> and are attempting to diseducate people. I react very strongly to that.
And so you should, progress has programmed you to do so. Yeah, it hurts
to think we don't have total control over our thoughts, but it's an
obvious truth, no?
> You *don't* know what the scientific enterprise is (or else you are
> deliberately lying about it); you *don't* understand scientific
> methodology (or else you are deliberately lying about it); you assert
> blatant falsehoods and then disqualify anyone from contradicting you on
> the grounds that one's own beliefs are always correct. In other words, you
> have plagiarized a system of thought that makes your private whims just as
> legitimate as physical fact, and now you're proselytizing your phantasms.
YOU assert that there is objective truth, and I deny this. These are the
basic assumptiosn by which we have engaged in this thread. Mine is a
conclusion based on my encouterswith critical theory. Yours is..wahtever
it is to you. It remains that you cannot convince me that there is any
sort of objective fact available to deny me. I will not see it your way,
anymore than I can expect you to see it mine.
> If you can't see the connection between that and all the wars the world
> has ever fought, all the divorces ever sanctioned, all the persecutions,
> pograms, racism, and sexism, then I'm appalled, and galvanized to oppose
> you.
I can't see the connection. I'm sorry that you would consider me immoral
and utterly opposable because of that. We all have our failings, I'd
construct.
> It's even worse in a democracy. When you deprive people of the constancy
> of reason, they will vote their prejudices, and they are perfectly
> justified to do so. When people vote their prejudices, minorities lose.
Minorities couldn't possibly gain from assimilation, could they? You seem
to be under the impression that democracy, for this reason, is terrible.
Get over it. That's just your opinion. People are prejudiced by the
truth, in any case. Doesn't reassure you? Also, how does Democracy deny
peple the "constancy of reason?" What does that mean? And what is the
better alternative? I bet you have one in mind.
> |>Not more then a century. Look up Oliver Heavyside. Besides, any such
> |>layman, in order to be able to contribute, would necessarily be branded a
> |>scientists by everyone but historians.
>
> You've ignored what I said again. A scientist is a scientist by virtue of
> methodology, not credentials, and *any* scientist would agree with that,
You've created a tautology. If one can be said to have contributed to
science, one is a scientist, and only scientists can contribue to
science. I'm sure I could state it better, if I cared to, but the point
is that you, you meaning you, get to pick and choose those from whom you
will accept science. This creates a belief that scientist isa pure
element, separate, perhasp greater than the man. Reminds me of the
reasoning that was used to separate quantum physics from jewish
physicists.
> so I don't give a cockroach's booger what a historian might say. Heaviside
> was a scientist. He didn't just pull his theory of the ionosphere out of
> his ass. He studied physics and electromagnetism for 18 years before his
> first substantial contributions in the field.
He "studied" by engaging in laywork. By any other perspective he was a
telegraph engineer who contributed to literature. The man has more to
him that science, but it's obvious which filters (what do they call them
in Europe: blinders?) you're looking through.
> |>Don't be absurd. My little theory is nearly identical to Einstein's,
> |>viewing only velocity as a relation, and not a speed, like we're taught
> |>explicitly. That's my understanding, at least. Why are you so frightened
> |>to question Einstein? "Nobody's done it yet, so it'll never work?" Is
> |>that your arguement?
>
> I've questioned Einstein plenty of times. I've played with altering the
> postulates. I've derived the Lorentz transforms any number of ways. Either
> your theory is isomorphic to Einstein's, or else it's a perturbation so
> tiny it has little physical significance, or it's ad hoc at the boundary
> conditions so that we haven't been able to test it yet, or else you have
> thrown away the principle of relativity (an action unjustified by
> experiment), or it contradicts experiment. Show me your theory. I'll show
> you which of the above it is. But since I'm not inclined to waste time on
> crackpots, if I do that with the results I predicted here, I will expect
> in return a full retraction of your calumny of science, posted in these
> newsgroups.
Ha. I'm a kibologist, which means, among many other things, that I don't
take USENET seriously for such a purpose. You can read about my theory
when it's complete. A crackpot could just as easily be a bozo as someone
whose's paradigm you don't share, and you'd never know the difference.
Sure, you've already categorized me, for --what's the word?-- "wheedling"
out? Big deal. I know what I know. I dont' care what you merely believe
I am.
> On second thought, nevermind. Since you don't accept reason as an arbiter,
> your little theory is true by definition and nothing anybody can say, and
> no experimental result, will change that.
Well, I struck that, even in a moment of sarcasm, you see the truth, the
same truth that I allow your mathematics, your reason-worship, and your
quantum-theory ankle-grabbing.
> |>1) To many people, aliens in starships DO EXIST. Just run over to
> |>alt.alien.visitors for evidence ad nauseum.
>
> No. Many people *believe* aliens in starships to exist.
The difference between belief and knowledge is the differnece between the
self and others. Do you KNOW for a fact that these people are not intouch
with a truth that is beyond you? OR that they are closer to the objective
truth than you? You know nothing about these people, yet you can speak
for whether or not they could be right? Of course not. You see the
world through your own eyes, just like the rest of us, and what everyone
else thinks is true, everyone else's cosmology, is merely a belief,
however misguided, while yours is something greater than belief. The
very idea that you think you are different, sir, is what makes you the
same as the rest of us.
> You give way too little credit to "people". There is nothing profound
> about the connection. A quick perusal of the science fiction shelf of your
> local bookstore should convince you that humans have dreamed up
> innumerable ideas of what aliens might be like, and plenty of them don't
> involve flying saucers. Just maybe some people -- a lot of people -- are
> brighter than you might think?
What's important (read: relevant) is that the concept of technology-driven
unknowns have *evidently* saturated humanity. Any magic, however,
sufficiently simplified, is indistinguishable from technology. At any
rate, why must the sci-fi shelf be examined? Any fiction, any history
will do, as long as it was written in modern times. I bet I could show
you an example in a cookbook.
> |>That which they have the most
> |>experience with is what they learn to think with. Psychobabble nothing,
> |>this is comparative history of ideas.
>
> And so obvious as to hardly merit comment, much less a field of study.
Tell that to the people who study it. Then ask them what they think of
your field, and it's importance and obviousness.
> |>Of course they were misguided. I mean of course the ones that didn't
> |>survive, numerous as they were, and not just the ones that progressed to
> |>modern theory. What of Rutherford's "transmutation of elements?" What of
> |>the work of Fitzgerald, and Drude? Are you saying that those brilliant
> |>scientists were simply wrong? I'd just like to hear you say you're
> |>smarter than them.
>
> I'm saying they did superbly well with what they had to work with. And now
> we have better. Yet again, you're waving red herrings. The issue was
> whether there has been progress, and the answer is yes. We are closer to
> whatever truth might exist than we were a hundred years ago, and they were
> closer than the century before them. Agreement between theory and results
> has progressed superbly.
Oh joy., Objective progress. It's self-fulfilling, you see. Of course
they will agree, but somehow, we'll never arrive at the truth, because
then progress would just stop. So, is progress open or closed?
> |>A prediction made, and the answer matched the prediction. I knew you'd
> |>say that, you have it written all over you. I imagine you've predicted
> |>that I'll disagree. I'd hate to disappoint you.
>
> Oh, congratulations. But I'm afraid you were wrong to imagine that I would
> have predicted that you'll disagree. I never thought you were stupid
> enough to miss an obvious character trait. Too bad you've selectively
> forgotten that you failed in your prediction that I would think the state
> of physical theory a hundred years ago to have been misguided. That's the
> problem with mystics. They never remember their failures.
And science does? Learning from the past has only so much value, but we
all cast it off because we think that finally, we have it right, we're
doing ti differently, Damn, we're just so much smarter than those fools
who blew it before.
> |>That's one way of looking at it. But if you think you can sum up a major
> |>movement in history in one paragraph, you're twice the fool I thought. We
> |>are, of course, talking about the same "infinitely dimentional world"
> |>here?
>
> We are talking specifically about progressive thought, not an infinitely
> dimensional world, and yes it can be summed up in one paragraph, just like
> anything else that has been given a name. I'm not here to write books for
> you to clabbily babble over.
clabbily babble? What does that _mean_? Progressive thought has been
considered by itself for as long as progress has existed (again, about 500
years) as "Progress." one paragraph? I don't think so.
> |>Yes. I deny the sum of accumulated empirical knowledge. And I've made
> |>over $14000 using MAKE.MONEY.FAST, and here's how:
>
> Sarcasm becomes you.
The first line wasn't sarcasm. If that ruptures your paradigm beyond the
efferts of rationalization ("He's just an undergrad/bozo/crackpot.") then
I apologize. I certainly don't what to rupture you, metaphysically
speaking. I'm not worried, though. I think your mind is closed enough
that you can fend off attack from an anti-logical paradigm.
> |>> And I taught myself history, good sir, because I was tired of morons with
> |>> various social agenda who tried to teach it to me.
> |>
> |>And you imposed your own.
>
> Well, now, let's see. First you accuse me of belonging to the category of
> people who toes the science line and can't disagree with Einstein, and now
> you say I've made up my own social agenda for history because I don't toe
> the lines of those with social agenda. According to your own principles, I
> have done precisely the right thing. According to my own principles I've
> done the scientific thing. The problem with people who have social agenda
> is that they can't agree amongst themselves and have no way to come to
> agreement. Which social agenda religion should I adopt as my own, hm?
> Scientists are blessedly resourceful on the latter point.
Yes, because we all know that there is no disparity of thought in the
scientific community. Get over it. Scientists are people, besides.
People are.. well, you figure it out. Acknowledge your agenda. Then live
with it, or deconstruct it, or deny it, or wahtever suits you, probably
the distant former.
> |>Well, all those years of reading Popular Science gone to waste, eh?
> |>That's PRECISELY how it is advertised, the substance of science itself be
> |>damned. Stupid enough? Science is the opiate of the masses. Getting
> |>trained in science is supposed to "open your eyes" to the inner workings
> |>of the modern religion. And yet, I believe it closes them.
>
> Well. There you have it. Science viewed through Popular Science. Did you
> ever think to ask a scientist, rather than a journalist? Or are you one of
> those inexplicably credulous fools who believes everything he reads in
> mass media?
You twit. I was being absurd. I don't believe I've evr ever read PS.
At any rate, are you one of those incredulous fools that believes
everything he reads in Physical Review? We all have our media.
Personally, I just believe everything that Kibo writes.
> |>> Lying assertions.
> |>
> |>I see the Liar Liar Pants on Fire defense works well for you over in the
> |>sci.* froups. We hold are arguments to a higher standard here in
> |>alt.religion.kibology. Read _Beamtimes and Lifetimes_ by Sharon Traweek,
> |>and see what a liar I am.
>
> Moron. It wasn't even worth responding to. I couldn't care less what
> Sharon Traweek says about anything. If you want examples of something
Oh god, would a little otherness harm you so much?
> going wrong even in science I can give you plenty. But your desperate need
> to generalize that, and everything else you have said, to the entire
> scientific enterprise doesn't make it true or even credible. Billions of
> dollars in scientific research every year is conducted around the world
> according to principles very different from what you outlined above.
So you say, and so you might see them as such. Far be it for anyone to
see things differently from you, the unmoved mover. All hail!
> |>Astronomy adviertise itself has knowing more, caring more and being more
> |>than it is. That, IMO, sucks royal.
>
> Liar. Astronomers advertise themselves as knowing more than others about
> astronomy. Document your case if you expect to be called anything but a
> liar.
Of course we're talking about astronomy, otherwise why woudl I bring up
astronomer? Don't answer that. Astronomers, if there is no objective
truth, know nothing more about astronomy than, say, Joe Bay's pet rabbit.
I think we both agree, however, that they say they know more than the
rabbit.
> |>No, but such promotion is /unscientific/, yet you'd never acknowledge
> |>that. We all make sacrifices for our fields, some call it selling out,
> |>other call it cashing in. That's not the point. The point is that
> |>science would not, as a religion, sacrifice its product to stoop to its
> |>own material needs. Science as a community grabs its ankles for grant
> |>money. Do you see the disparity?
>
> No. You really are dumber than I thought. Unlike an industrial enterprise,
> science is directly dependent on society for funding. Scientists are
> beggars. They always have been and always will be. Scientists tell people
> their labors will bear technological fruits. They point to their past
> successes. See that new car you are so proud of? See that telephone you
> talk to grandmother with? See how you are warmer in the winter with less
> cost? See... These are not deceptions. Science will continue to deliver
> technology, and to do so they will continue to beg for money.
Science deliverys, but cannot sell technology? Why are science intensive
drugs so expensive? The R&D cost is sunk, why not just sell the drug?
Becaus the company wants to continue Research, that's why. There you have
science paying for itself. IBM learns about unique computing solutions
and still makes money from SLAC for the privilege of using the machines.
No begging for research opportunities there, and no begging for cash.
Science is somehow different, somehow separate, from industrial
enterprise? Hah. That's only a scientific perspective. The Manhattan
project was not a scientific endeavour in the eyes of the War DEpt. It
was a weapon development program, industrial scaled. It was war, funded
as war, secured as war. It was the military engaging in the practice of
war. But, you don't see it that way. Maybe you could learn something
from doing so, but I doubt you'll agree.
> Your problem is that you don't, or don't want to, see the human value of
> the fruits of science, and you're claiming scientists tell people they'll
> be happier for their efforts. Well, science has nothing to say about that.
Yeah, science just sort of exists outside everything, we feed it moeny, it
brings us technology, or knowledge, or something like that. Every view we
have of science is, however, merely a poor interpreation of what you say
(or is it *know*) it is, filtered through various media, yet lacking
the truth as you see it.
What a fine idea.
> Scientists don't tell people they'll be happy with telephones and cars.
> People who sell cars and telephones tell people that. Scientists just say
> they'll deliver the technology, and they do.
Scientists (science itself notwithstanding) are told that people will be
happy with plastics, and telephones, and cars, and atom bombs, because
they _are_ people. At any rate, obviously it's people who tell people
that they'll be happy with the above.
> |>What do you mean by "understand" with regard to the methodology?
>
> Your fabricated ouline on the scientist's methodology, several paragraphs
> above, is proof of your ignorance.
I meant the word "understand." Why use it if it lacks rigorous meaning,
as demonstrated in this thread? At any rate, are you refering to the
objective proof of my objective ignorance? I hope so.
> |>On the other hand, maybe it's time for a reformation. No, make that a
> |>Reformation. Heck, how about a REFORMATION! AT 11!
>
> My main points are:
>
> 1) You are lying about the methodology of scientists, resorting to
> hyperbole on top of instances that scientists themselves think
> inappropriate.
I don't speak for science or scientists like you do. You see it one way,
and see that it is the only way. I don't see either thing.
> 2) You are lying about how scientists present themselves, providing
> journalists' portraits as evidence.
What other portraits are there? It is through jouranlists that scineces
present themselves to non-scientists.
> 3) You are rejecting the principles of reason, of objective facts and
> inferences from fact, in favor of according equal value to
> undifferentiated hallucinations of the individual mind. What value you
> think reasoning with others in this forum might be baffles me.
Yes, yes, and no yada nauseum. What convinces you of objective truth?
Lemme guess: Reason. What convinces you of reason? Chances are it's the
concept of objective truth. Have some courage man, and deny, for a
moment, these concepts. You'll have to look at things differently in that
moment. What could you lose? Besides, it's obvious that I'm not
reasoning in this "forum" (it's a newsfroup, please), but following up, in
many senses. You can't challenge your own hallucinations, yet you expect
me to? (I guess so. Such self-centeredness was and is very hard to get
over.)
> 4) You are intellectually dishonest in leverage the fruits of science
> while disparaging the scientific enterprise.
I don't buy that at all.
> I don't care to continue this. I'm quite busy in other pursuits, some of
> which are scientific.
Well, I won't think any less of you, I see that you tried. Thanks, I
enjoyed this.
daan Strebe
In article
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
|>On Thu, 27 Jun 1996, daan Strebe wrote:
|>> It's even worse in a democracy. When you deprive people of the constancy
|>> of reason, they will vote their prejudices, and they are perfectly
|>> justified to do so. When people vote their prejudices, minorities lose.
|>
|>Minorities couldn't possibly gain from assimilation, could they? You seem
|>to be under the impression that democracy, for this reason, is terrible.
|>Get over it. That's just your opinion. People are prejudiced by the
|>truth, in any case. Doesn't reassure you? Also, how does Democracy deny
|>peple the "constancy of reason?" What does that mean? And what is the
|>better alternative? I bet you have one in mind.
Mssr. Nick has entirely misconstrued my meaning. I think democracy to be
the most practical and efficent form of government. However, when people
are taught to reject reason in favor of legitimating their private
phantasms, as he advocates, democracy will fail since an arbiter of
justice no longer exists. In no way did I imply that democracy deprives
people of the constancy of reason; I was referring to Mr. Nick's advocacy
of irrationality. His beliefs are incompatible with democracy. A strong
monarchy or dictatorship would render him and people like him largely
impotent. An anarchy is the only form of government that is both
compatible with his beliefs and can accord him equal franchise.
|>> so I don't give a cockroach's booger what a historian might say. Heaviside
|>> was a scientist. He didn't just pull his theory of the ionosphere out of
|>> his ass. He studied physics and electromagnetism for 18 years before his
|>> first substantial contributions in the field.
|>
|>He "studied" by engaging in laywork. By any other perspective he was a
|>telegraph engineer who contributed to literature. The man has more to
|>him that science, but it's obvious which filters (what do they call them
|>in Europe: blinders?) you're looking through.
In 1870 [Heaviside] became a telegrapher, but increasing deafness
forced him to retire in 1874. He then devoted himself to investi-
gations of electricity. In Electrical Papers (1892) he dealt with...
[Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1995, Micropaedia article on Heaviside]
Can devoting oneself to investigations of electricity for 18 years after
retiring from a 4 year employment be considered laywork as a telegraphic
engineer? No. But Mr. Nick has already absolved himself of the
responsibility of adhering to facts, so let not the Esteemed Reader hold
him accountable.
|>> We are talking specifically about progressive thought, not an infinitely
|>> dimensional world, and yes it can be summed up in one paragraph, just like
|>> anything else that has been given a name. I'm not here to write books for
|>> you to clabbily babble over.
|>
|>clabbily babble? What does that _mean_?
Clabby (adj.): A 'clabby' conversation is one struck up by a
commissionaire or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further
actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke
the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby
conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct use
of 'clixby' (q.v.), the response to a clabby gambit, and not to
get trapped by a 'ditherington' (q.v.). For instance, if con-
fronted by the clabby gambit such as, "Oh, Mr Smith, I didn't
know you'd had your leg off," the ditherington response is "I
haven't..." whereas the clixby is "Good."
Clixby (adj.): Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
Ditherington (n.): Sudden access of panic experienced by one who
realized that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.)
conversation, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting
from or understanding.
[The Deeper Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, 1990]
babble (--intr.) 1. To utter a meaningless confusion of words and
sounds. 2. To talk foolishly or idly; chatter. 3. To make a con-
tinuous, low murmering sound, as flowing water. (--tr.) 1. To
utter rapidly and indistinctly. 2. To blurt out impulsively; dis-
close without careful consideration.
[The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition]
daan
Tom Potter
>
>stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) wrote:
>:I think this is the classic error of postmodernism (or maybe just
>:postmodernism as I see it popularly applied): to assume that because
we
>:can't communicate infallibly we can't communicate at all. That just
>
>Isn't the Lesson of Information Theory just the opposite? THat is,
>we can communicate, we just can't do so infallibly.
>
>Of course, I suppose that Information Theory also says that we can
>get as close to "infallible" as we want, as long as we are willing
>to Pay the Cost in Bits.
>Try this in a "DOS Box" for fun and profit!!!
>echo f 0:0 ffff 0 | debug
I suggest that "ffff" is far "too many bits",
and that you would wipe out your interrupt table
long before you used all those bits. ;-)
Tom Potter
Tom Potter
>
>> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> >On 25 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
>> >> I think your problem is too much either-or thinking. Either
science
>> >> has to give you some Trancendental Understanding of the universe
or it's
>> >> worthless. Either it explains everything or it explains nothing.
I
>> >> don't know why such an obviously false dichotomy is so popular.
>>
>> >Not really. Either it explains or it does not.
>>
>> Well, if you have to put it that way, I'd argue that all the models
we
>> make as we "do science" explain something and that no one creates a
model
>> that doesn't explain something that we've observed. The next
question is
>> how *well* a model explains our observations.
>
>I wouldn't contest that. But in turn students are instructed that
these
>models are in fact the truth about the universe or whatever. I mean,
>nobody (in his right mind, naturally) would attempt to contradict your
>basic Copernican planetary orbital arrangment.
As I have mentioned a few times in these forums,
THE EARTH DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE SUN.
This concept makes no sense,
as it implys that there is something special
about the Sun as compared to the planets.
The fact of the matter is, thet the Sun and the Earth
interact about a common point, in a common time.
I guess I must not be in my "right mind" to state this.
Tom Potter http://pobox.com/~tdp
Rose Marie Holt
>
> [The Deeper Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, 1990]
This was made into a good Monty Python movie. I especially liked Mr Creosote.
>
>
> babble (--intr.) 1. To utter a meaningless confusion of words and
> sounds. 2. To talk foolishly or idly; chatter. 3. To make a con-
> tinuous, low murmering sound, as flowing water. (--tr.) 1. To
> utter rapidly and indistinctly. 2. To blurt out impulsively; dis-
> close without careful consideration.
>
> [The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition]
>
> daan
YM "beable"
BTW, this has been a difficult thread for me to follow, especially since
they dont allow calculators or slide rules in a.r.k. When I signed up,
they said there would be no homework. I want my money back.
E Teflon Piano
[...]
>
>More to the point, if you'd quoted the above in context you can see that I
>was addressing Louis's seeming desire for Truth rather than the limited
>models that science can offer, and it was in that respect that I suggested
>science and religion might be on equal footing. Religion more frequently
>*claims* to offer Unmediated Truth, whereas scientists who know what they're
>talking about make more limited claims about what we can know through our
>senses.
>
Look, if you want capital-T Truth, go to law, that's what we at the
Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society say. The Truth is what the judge or
anywhere from six to 12 people decide it is for *each* particular instance.
And that suits us just fine, because it provides certainty without rigidity.
--
E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and
founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont
Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano
Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements.
(c)E 1995-96
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> |>On Thu, 27 Jun 1996, daan Strebe wrote:
> |>> It's even worse in a democracy. When you deprive people of the constancy
> |>> of reason, they will vote their prejudices, and they are perfectly
> |>> justified to do so. When people vote their prejudices, minorities lose.
> |>
> |>Minorities couldn't possibly gain from assimilation, could they? You seem
> |>to be under the impression that democracy, for this reason, is terrible.
> |>Get over it. That's just your opinion. People are prejudiced by the
> |>truth, in any case. Doesn't reassure you? Also, how does Democracy deny
> |>peple the "constancy of reason?" What does that mean? And what is the
> |>better alternative? I bet you have one in mind.
>
> Mssr. Nick has entirely misconstrued my meaning. I think democracy to be
> the most practical and efficent form of government. However, when people
> are taught to reject reason in favor of legitimating their private
> phantasms, as he advocates, democracy will fail since an arbiter of
> justice no longer exists. In no way did I imply that democracy deprives
> people of the constancy of reason; I was referring to Mr. Nick's advocacy
> of irrationality. His beliefs are incompatible with democracy. A strong
> monarchy or dictatorship would render him and people like him largely
> impotent. An anarchy is the only form of government that is both
> compatible with his beliefs and can accord him equal franchise.
Not IRrational, but arational. Obviously, it would have to chuck the
entire Liberalist idea of government forms, but you'd see that as anarchy,
yes.
Also, this is USENET. Let none of us be held accountable for what we
write. That would almost imply taht USENET should be taken seriously.
Kibo forbid.
Louis Nick III
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
> >On 26 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> >> Well, if you have to put it that way, I'd argue that all the models
> we
> >> make as we "do science" explain something and that no one creates a
> model
> >> that doesn't explain something that we've observed. The next
> question is
> >> how *well* a model explains our observations.
> >
> >I wouldn't contest that. But in turn students are instructed that
> these
> >models are in fact the truth about the universe or whatever. I mean,
> >nobody (in his right mind, naturally) would attempt to contradict your
> >basic Copernican planetary orbital arrangment.
>
> As I have mentioned a few times in these forums,
> THE EARTH DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE SUN.
>
> This concept makes no sense,
> as it implys that there is something special
> about the Sun as compared to the planets.
Well, there is. It gives off heavenly light and warmth. It is the source
of all life on Earth. And it's big. Really big.
And it's made of green cheese.
> The fact of the matter is, thet the Sun and the Earth
> interact about a common point, in a common time.
One more than the other, relevantly.
> I guess I must not be in my "right mind" to state this.
ARE YOU A BOZO?
[CHECK ONLY ONE]
[ ] YES
[ ] NO
Louis Nick III
> In article <4qui2o$e...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, Michael Straight wrote:
> >More to the point, if you'd quoted the above in context you can see that I
> >was addressing Louis's seeming desire for Truth rather than the limited
> >models that science can offer, and it was in that respect that I suggested
> >science and religion might be on equal footing. Religion more frequently
> >*claims* to offer Unmediated Truth, whereas scientists who know what they're
> >talking about make more limited claims about what we can know through our
> >senses.
> >
> Look, if you want capital-T Truth, go to law, that's what we at the
> Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society say. The Truth is what the judge or
> anywhere from six to 12 people decide it is for *each* particular instance.
> And that suits us just fine, because it provides certainty without rigidity.
I just heard on NPR (forgive me Jaffo) that there was some truth decided
by three judges. Where does that fit? Also, I like this paradigm,
because you can appeal the truth. Please add me to the list.
Louis "Wondering what the alt.tv.magnum-pi people think the Truth is" Nick
P.S. but if I crosspost, that Adam Frix d00d will make me lose my account.
Ah well. I hope the mail he sent me cost him at least one of his.
daan Strebe
rmh...@micron.net (Rose Marie Holt) wrote:
|>> from or understanding.
|>>
|>> [The Deeper Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, 1990]
|> ^^^^
|>
|>This was made into a good Monty Python movie. I especially liked Mr Creosote.
|>
Um... an amusing association, but no, the two works are entirely
independent of each other, and the Liff, spelled as it is, is correct.
Adams's & Lloyd's book is essential reading.
daan
E Teflon Piano
exaggerated claims thereto]
[ILLS then suggested:]
> > Look, if you want capital-T Truth, go to law, that's what we at the
> > Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society say. The Truth is what the judge or
> > anywhere from six to 12 people decide it is for *each* particular instance.
> > And that suits us just fine, because it provides certainty without rigidity.
>
[Whereupon, Mr. Nick exercised due diligence:]
> I just heard on NPR (forgive me Jaffo) that there was some truth decided
> by three judges. Where does that fit?
We at the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society don't know to which *specific*
case you refer, and we don't need to know to assert this
true-in-all-cases observation: Faks is faks. Once the faks has been
determined, the judges need only apply the relevant *law* to the faks to
arrive at a decision. [This is *so* Catholic. Lawyers should have a pope.]
Also, I like this paradigm,
> because you can appeal the truth. Please add me to the list.
No. You can appeal the judge's decision about how the law fits the
faks. But the faks, they are set in stone fervernever.
The *law* may change through time, but the Truth of an issue never
does. The judge may be wrong, but not the Truth. Neat, eh?
E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and
founder of the Internet Legal Society.[dibs] Teflon is DuPont Corporation's
trade name for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano Enterprises'
tradememe for satire, calculated misstatements and ironic hyperbole.
Jim Carr
stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
>
>What you say may be true, but since I don't have enough math background to
>do what you suggest, I'll have to take you're word for it. 99% of what we
>(as individuals) know we know because somebody told us and we believed it.
I think you underestimate how much we learn from our own observations,
or the importance of our experiences in deciding whether to believe
what we are told. It is only "belief" if you accept it solely on
authority, which will not be the case if you analyze and process what
you have been told within the context of your own knowledge.
You underestimate your ability to make sense of some of the observations
of physics without a deep mathematical insight into all the details.
After all, it is more than math when experiment is involved.
>For me to believe that, say, neutrinos exist, I have to either take the
>word of physicists like yourself on faith or I would have to invest a few
>years learning math and physics in order to prove it to myself,
Not necessarily. The idea is not that complicated. The neutrino was
proposed to explain an apparent absence of energy/momentum conservation
in beta decay. If it is real, it should be possible to do the inverse
reaction where capture of a neutrino causes the beta decay reaction to
go in reverse. That is what was done.
It may be hard to believe this can be pulled off -- after all, it took
more than a few years for other physicists to be convinced they had
all the possible errors under control -- but the process is not much
different than deciding that your car mechanic knows what is going on.
--
James A. Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | is also the British Olympic training
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | site. Check out http://
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | www.freenet.tlh.fl.us/Olympics/
Louis Nick III
On Sun, 30 Jun 1996, E Teflon Piano wrote:
> We at the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society don't know to which *specific*
> case you refer, and we don't need to know to assert this
> true-in-all-cases observation: Faks is faks. Once the faks has been
> determined, the judges need only apply the relevant *law* to the faks to
> arrive at a decision. [This is *so* Catholic. Lawyers should have a pope.]
Pope Derschewitz? What would they call him besides "your honor?"
> Also, I like this paradigm,
> > because you can appeal the truth. Please add me to the list.
>
> No. You can appeal the judge's decision about how the law fits the
> faks. But the faks, they are set in stone fervernever.
Like my Giant H!
> The *law* may change through time, but the Truth of an issue never
> does. The judge may be wrong, but not the Truth. Neat, eh?
And you avoid any sort of conflict when the laws changes with such
concepts as habeaus corpus, duo jeaporadeus, ex post facto, and crepidas
meas per clavos ad solem adfixitne. What a remarkable and clever system.
UW Law, here I come.
Louis "Can I triple major Law, AStronomy, Physics, and minor CHID? How
many degrees is that? How many Kelvins?" Nick
Eli M. Balin
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>On 26 Jun 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
>> evolutionary biology). Religion, on the other hand, will not change its
>> assumptions. The methods by which it is followed might alter slightly,
>> but the basic tenets on which the religion were founded, and the
>> religion's view of the universe, as defined by those tenets, will not
>> change. Anything which might suggest otherwise will be written off by the
>> arbitrary fiat "God (or whatever) did it." A few hours of reading
>> talk.origins can confirm this last part.
>
>It's not really arbitrary. I mean, consider the perspect fo someone that
>really believes (and why not?) that God created this eloborate universe
>about 6000 years ago. Who are we, arrogant upstarts of science, to
>challenge The Creator?
It's an absurd perspective, one which attempts to stifle any innovative
thought purely on the basis (I think) of fear of change. If it had
been taken seriously at every major historical juncture, we'd still be
living in huts on the edge of a bog somewhere, dying of skinned kneecaps
and hiding under our beds at the sound of thunder.
>Chaos theory notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure that God is that which we
>cannot perceive, which makes the presence God fairly moot. The reason I
>mention chaos theory is that if God is unperceivable, He is also that
>which we cannot account for, no matter what scale we try. God is in the
>details, I'd say.
I'd still prefer to put a big "(x)" there, rather than something which
is, by definition, barely comprehensible and possibly sentient.
>But obviously, He's not a Christian God, or a Muslim Allah, or a Kibo or
>what not. And I'm not sure He's a Creator, but I couldn't say otherwise.
That seems to rule out most of the more prevalent concepts, and makes the
whole issue of a god's existence nearly irrelevant. I mean, if everyone's
wrong about It, and if It's not a "Creator," than why bother giving it
any thought?
This is kind of why I regard the possibility of an Omnipotent Omniscient
Being as irrelevant; there are just too many logical flaws with the
concept.
>> >Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
>> >about truth, held by faith.
>>
>> I have a bit of a problem with your use of the term "unassailable facts"
>> with respect to religion. A)They're not facts, they're beliefs; B)Nothing
>> is unassailable. It's only the insistence of faith (which, IMO, doesn't
>> benefit critical thought) that makes the beliefs seem so.
>
>One man's facts are another man's beliefs.
That doesn't quite make sense. I don't see how one person could "know"
something, while another will "believe" it, when they're both thinking of
the same thing.
One person's "fact" will be another person's "absurdity," is what I'm
guessing you may have meant.
>Sometimes I just can't get
>another to see it my way. Why? Because I can't understand what makes
>them think they way they do, and I can't assume (although it's never
>stopped me) that my thoughts could even be comprehended by another.
People being unable to understand each other's viewpoints has more to do
with communications ability, and the ability to use their psychological
and historical backgrounds to fit those viewpoints into a context.
>Yes, but religion has definitely chaged in the last 1500 years. Aristotle
>anyone?
Religion hasn't changed much in the last 1500 years. Aristotle lived in
the 4th century BC (and it has changed quite a bit since then).
More to the point, any major changes have been mainly the result of a new
religion appearing, or an old one disappearing.
>> "4. A particular system of faith and worship."
>>
>> This might almost work for science, except for that "faith" bit.
>
>It's a personal choice about whether you consider faith to be an everyday
>trust in someone else's belief or if it's some grand mystical property.
There's a wide gulf between faith and trust. Trust typically has to be
earned, and is based on a set of previously-proven principles, while faith
seems to be a reflexive act, i.e.: taking something "for granted."
Having never been able to count on anything being certain for longer than
five minutes, I feel the latter is foolish.
"Trust in someone else's belief," on the other hand, is something I tend
to base on knowledge of the chain of events leading up to that belief,
their qualifications with respect to that chain of events, and my
judgement of the belief's ability (based on my knowledge of the subject)
to fit into the context of that which it explains.
This is a bit murky, and has often led to having multiple opinions on a
single issue, but it seems to work in an overall sense.
>> "5. Recognition on the part of man of some higher unseen power as hoaving
>> control of his destiny, and as being entitled to obediance, reverence,
>> and worship..."
>>
>> Same as with definition 3.
>
>I'd say the FOURTH DIMENSION qualifies here as teh unseen power.
>I can find for you people that worship time, that are fated and controlled
>by it, and are powerless to deny (as far as I can tell) and do, in fact,
>revere time.
Bah. Fatalists are a dime a dozen where I'm from. Same with middle
management.
>> "6. Devotion to some principle; strict fidelity or faithfulness;
>> conscientiousness; pious affection or attachment."
>>
>> This could certainly apply to the approach of some scientists to science,
>> but could also apply to commerce, law, or good oral hygiene. None of
>> those would be regarded as religions either.
>
>Not by you. I would, in a Seattle Half-hour.
You must have some damn clean teeth, then.
-Eli "Are clean teeth next to...aw, forget it" Balin
--
Eli M. Balin elib...@panix.com
"We like getting nasty messages from robots in New Zealand" - Matt McIrvin
Louis Nick III
On 1 Jul 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >On 26 Jun 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
> >> Anything which might suggest otherwise will be written off by the
> >> arbitrary fiat "God (or whatever) did it." A few hours of reading
> >> talk.origins can confirm this last part.
> >
> >It's not really arbitrary. I mean, consider the perspect fo someone that
> >really believes (and why not?) that God created this eloborate universe
> >about 6000 years ago. Who are we, arrogant upstarts of science, to
> >challenge The Creator?
>
> It's an absurd perspective, one which attempts to stifle any innovative
> thought purely on the basis (I think) of fear of change. If it had
> been taken seriously at every major historical juncture, we'd still be
> living in huts on the edge of a bog somewhere, dying of skinned kneecaps
> and hiding under our beds at the sound of thunder.
This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if man is
inately progressive. But consider indegenous tribes of Aborigines, or
American Natives. These cultures, we are told, did not advance for
hundreds of years, either because they did not have the time to advance
(if you have time to lean, you have time to clean) or perhaps they just
didn't feel any impulse to change. Ignoring the Ludditesque implications,
what's so bad about those days? Not to say they were grand, but I'd
venture, at least, that one could reach a similar state of happiness or
satisfaction with one's life back then as you can now.
> >Chaos theory notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure that God is that which we
> >cannot perceive, which makes the presence God fairly moot. The reason I
> >mention chaos theory is that if God is unperceivable, He is also that
> >which we cannot account for, no matter what scale we try. God is in the
> >details, I'd say.
>
> I'd still prefer to put a big "(x)" there, rather than something which
> is, by definition, barely comprehensible and possibly sentient.
Well, it doesn't matter what you call it, and yeah, "God" does imply a
hell of a lot more that I would say I infer.
> >But obviously, He's not a Christian God, or a Muslim Allah, or a Kibo or
> >what not. And I'm not sure He's a Creator, but I couldn't say otherwise.
>
> That seems to rule out most of the more prevalent concepts, and makes the
> whole issue of a god's existence nearly irrelevant. I mean, if everyone's
> wrong about It, and if It's not a "Creator," than why bother giving it
> any thought?
No way to tell. Even cosmologists at the height of modernity (now) say
taht we'll never be able to see within some 100,000 years of _The
Beginning_. That's where the philosophers check in. At any rate, I
wouldn't deny people their truths. I'm just telling you the truth as I
see it.
> This is kind of why I regard the possibility of an Omnipotent Omniscient
> Being as irrelevant; there are just too many logical flaws with the
> concept.
Now, logic isn't the only way of approaching that sort of thing. Yes, it
is chock full of interesting conflicts, but no more than rec.org.mensa on
a slow day. But one must realize that the great O.O. will be something
greater than one can currenmtly even begin to approach understanding.
The idea that we can define these terms, or this (x), or the Creator, is
really the limit of what we can say about them. We're too human to
understand something that is greater than human.
> >> >Religions are more of a common context, a common set of unasailable facts
> >> >about truth, held by faith.
> >>
> >> I have a bit of a problem with your use of the term "unassailable facts"
> >> with respect to religion. A)They're not facts, they're beliefs; B)Nothing
> >> is unassailable. It's only the insistence of faith (which, IMO, doesn't
> >> benefit critical thought) that makes the beliefs seem so.
> >
> >One man's facts are another man's beliefs.
>
> That doesn't quite make sense. I don't see how one person could "know"
> something, while another will "believe" it, when they're both thinking of
> the same thing.
Consider two witnesses at a crime scene, say, a murder. Each one said the
other killed the victim. You would assume, logically, that one is lying.
Or perhaps, for some contorted logic-puzzle reason, they are lying by
omission, the fact that they both killed the victim. I would say, rather,
that there was no objective event but two subjective events. Don't
worry, though. As a jury member I would fulfill my socially contracted
duties to convict based on evidence, yada yada and acquit based on crappy
prosecution (not to mention the prosecutor's hairstyle) yada yada. But
Everything we know about the event is interpreted through the evidence,
the scientific analysis of it, and testimony. Ultimately, however, every
person, given the same evidence, testimony, yada, will come up with a
different understanding, a different picture, of what happened. Now we
have the two initial, and 12 secondary (jury) ideas/beliefs about what
happened at the crime scene. Heck, even a video of the crime would be
interpreted by everyone. It is on the juror's subjective
ideas/beliefs/conclusions about what is truthful that he will decide.
Discussion in the jury room will change the elements of the truth (as a
juror sees it) in emphasis and organization, that is, in general
understanding, but it won't change the fact that a juror only knows what
he hears.
Relevantly, this is not an attack on the legal system. A post-modern
legal system, however, will require much refinement if it begins along
these lines.
> One person's "fact" will be another person's "absurdity," is what I'm
> guessing you may have meant.
A lot of the sci.physics people consider absurd the idea that there is no
objective truth. I, on the other hand, see it as an inescapable
conclusion. (As fallout of my conclusion, I don't have a problem with
this disparity, and they necessarily would.)
> >Sometimes I just can't get
> >another to see it my way. Why? Because I can't understand what makes
> >them think they way they do, and I can't assume (although it's never
> >stopped me) that my thoughts could even be comprehended by another.
>
> People being unable to understand each other's viewpoints has more to do
> with communications ability, and the ability to use their psychological
> and historical backgrounds to fit those viewpoints into a context.
There's only so much you can squeeze through language. Hell, even
telepathy (a la your basic sci-fi) has hideously low bandwidth for
communicated complete *ideas*.
> >Yes, but religion has definitely chaged in the last 1500 years. Aristotle
> >anyone?
>
> Religion hasn't changed much in the last 1500 years. Aristotle lived in
> the 4th century BC (and it has changed quite a bit since then).
> More to the point, any major changes have been mainly the result of a new
> religion appearing, or an old one disappearing.
I see. So religions don't change..by definition? I can see why you'd say
that, and I'm not entirely sure I'd disagree. They just replace one
another and this creates the illusion (or reality, your choice) of change?
> >> "4. A particular system of faith and worship."
> >>
> >> This might almost work for science, except for that "faith" bit.
> >
> >It's a personal choice about whether you consider faith to be an everyday
> >trust in someone else's belief or if it's some grand mystical property.
>
> There's a wide gulf between faith and trust. Trust typically has to be
> earned, and is based on a set of previously-proven principles, while faith
> seems to be a reflexive act, i.e.: taking something "for granted."
Trust gained through experience is just that. What you have is someone
who conveys to you a model of understanding <something> and because the
model is so successful for you, you tend to believe that the modeler is
capable now, and perhaps in the future, of offering further valuable
"understanding" or reality models thereof.
> Having never been able to count on anything being certain for longer than
> five minutes, I feel the latter is foolish.
Aw, did those Geometry Proofs in 9th grade bug you so? Taking something
for granted inthe manner of faith implies that you cannot readily test it.
You take your vision for granted, because a simple and subconscious
examination of your senses will include sight. You won't, however, take
the concept of telepathy for granted because what you consider an adequate
test would fail the concept. I'd wager that faith implies something about
one's standards for testing such concepts. If I say that God is createor
of all things yada, I might test it by trying to find God in all things,
or finding a "signature" in all things, i.e. if all things contain
molecules, then all things were made by the same creator. This is my
test. I see flying colors. The thought occurs that mulitple creators
should be considered, but it would really blow the roof off of universal
cosmological homogeneity.
> This is a bit murky, and has often led to having multiple opinions on a
> single issue, but it seems to work in an overall sense.
Mental Darwin say: If it works, it's what you need. If it doesn't work,
well, it's not working out.
> >I'd say the FOURTH DIMENSION qualifies here as teh unseen power.
> >I can find for you people that worship time, that are fated and controlled
> >by it, and are powerless to deny (as far as I can tell) and do, in fact,
> >revere time.
>
> Bah. Fatalists are a dime a dozen where I'm from. Same with middle
> management.
I think, however, that fatalists lack a Dilbert.
> >> "6. Devotion to some principle; strict fidelity or faithfulness;
> >> conscientiousness; pious affection or attachment."
> >>
> >> This could certainly apply to the approach of some scientists to science,
> >> but could also apply to commerce, law, or good oral hygiene. None of
> >> those would be regarded as religions either.
> >
> >Not by you. I would, in a Seattle Half-hour.
>
> You must have some damn clean teeth, then.
I dunno. Brushing with religious ferver makes my gums bleed. Brushing
with trust in my dentist takes to long. Brushing to clean my breath, for
my own satisfaction, is what I require. Zen brushing, you see. And you
don't have to eat a grasshopper.
Still, you should see Boeing sell them Triple-7's. Serious commerce, and
nobody'ed complain much if they were above the law. And they have good
smiles.
> -Eli "Are clean teeth next to...aw, forget it" Balin
Louis "now we have another interpretation on Oral Philosophy" Nick
Bill Marcum
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
>[CHECK ONLY ONE]
>[ ] YES
>[ ] NO
I think we're all bozos on this bus.
--
Bill Marcum bma...@iglou.com
On 22 July, 1996, at 6:00 pm GMT, everyone in the world
just START HUMMING. Those who don't know will freak.
Robert Hubby
Bill Marcum (bma...@iglou.iglou.com) wrote:
: In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
: Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
: >ARE YOU A BOZO?
: >[CHECK ONLY ONE]
: >[ ] YES
: >[ ] NO
:
: I think we're all bozos on this bus.
Yes, this seems to be a trick question...
R.A.H. Elf of the redwoods, Sonoma Valley, Breakfast Cereal Country.
"'Vuns Rockets go up, who cares vere dey kum down? That's not my
department!' says Wehrner Von Braun!" - Tom Lehrer.
Teg Pipes
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>On 25 Jun 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
>
>You're confusing ends with means here. One test of whether we've found out
>something objective about nature is whether we can use that knowledge to
>do something we want. You're right that "what we want" (our definition
>of "better") is subjective, but that doesn't mean the "truths" we use to
>get what we want are subjective.
>I would say science is around (1) because it is Beautiful and Satisfying
>to explore nature and this is a Good Thing in it's own right, and (2) to
>give humanity tools to do Good Things for ourselves and each other. Yes
>it often doesn't work that way, but that's the reasons I would give for
>doing science, and I don't think both reasons are more than just
>"satisfying the scientist."
This is the standard "Argument from Engineering" for defense of the
thesis that Science actually does progress (often brought up right
after someone is introduced to Kuhn.) After about three of these
arguments, I still don't understand why Philosophers don't go for it.
They never seem to buy this argument.
-Teg
Jim Carr
} [CHECK ONLY ONE]
} [ ] YES
} [ ] NO
bma...@iglou.iglou.com (Bill Marcum) writes:
>
>I think we're all bozos on this bus.
Inflate shoes before leaving.
Does this mean we can begin a side-thread on the 'Big Bang' dissing the
idea that
"In the beginning there were hot lumps; cold and lonely they
whirled aimlessly through the black holes of space ... "
in favor of
"In the beginning there was this turtle ... "
>On 22 July, 1996, at 6:00 pm GMT, everyone in the world
>just START HUMMING. Those who don't know will freak.
Interesting idea. 1800 Z is 2 pm EDT. Very suitable.
We have a group meeting on Monday starting at that time!
Eli M. Balin
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96070...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
>>
>> It's an absurd perspective, one which attempts to stifle any innovative
>> thought purely on the basis (I think) of fear of change. If it had
>> been taken seriously at every major historical juncture, we'd still be
>> living in huts on the edge of a bog somewhere, dying of skinned kneecaps
>> and hiding under our beds at the sound of thunder.
>
>This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if man is
>inately progressive. But consider indegenous tribes of Aborigines, or
>American Natives. These cultures, we are told, did not advance for
>hundreds of years, either because they did not have the time to advance
>(if you have time to lean, you have time to clean) or perhaps they just
>didn't feel any impulse to change. Ignoring the Ludditesque implications,
>what's so bad about those days? Not to say they were grand, but I'd
>venture, at least, that one could reach a similar state of happiness or
>satisfaction with one's life back then as you can now.
Most cultures which haven't "advanced" (a very subjective term,
incidentally), were mostly restrained by resource availability. In some
cases, this is related to "not having the time;" the Aborigines live in a
marginally-supportive area (used to be better, before sheep and dingos
got there, I'm told), so there aren't many places in which they might be
able to establish sedentarism. Looking at ancient history, you'll find
that cultures using "technology" (a somewhat narrowly-defined term) arose in
relatively fertile areas (Tigris-Euphartes Crescent, Nile Valley,
Mediterranean Coasts), or in areas where extremely harsh conditions forced
innovation (Scandinavia). On the other hand, if conditions are nearly
perfect, very little effort is needed to improve life (Hawaii, before the
18th century, was about as close to a "paradise" as one could live in,
yet would be considered "primitive" by European and Asian standards).
Indeed, things for many weren't all that bad, but they could be better.
The modern average lifespan is twice what it was 1000 years ago. It takes
a concerted effort to get lost at sea. We don't need to hunt anymore.
>> That seems to rule out most of the more prevalent concepts, and makes the
>> whole issue of a god's existence nearly irrelevant. I mean, if everyone's
>> wrong about It, and if It's not a "Creator," than why bother giving it
>> any thought?
>
>No way to tell. Even cosmologists at the height of modernity (now) say
>taht we'll never be able to see within some 100,000 years of _The
>Beginning_. That's where the philosophers check in. At any rate, I
>wouldn't deny people their truths. I'm just telling you the truth as I
>see it.
Understood. I'd simply prefer to keep "Truth" and "Reality" separate, and
not leap to mystical conclusions where the evidence runs out. Deductive
reasoning works better, and is a lot more fun.
>
>> This is kind of why I regard the possibility of an Omnipotent Omniscient
>> Being as irrelevant; there are just too many logical flaws with the
>> concept.
>
>Now, logic isn't the only way of approaching that sort of thing. Yes, it
>is chock full of interesting conflicts, but no more than rec.org.mensa on
>a slow day. But one must realize that the great O.O. will be something
>greater than one can currenmtly even begin to approach understanding.
I have an unusual amount of confidence in humans, and don't quite think
there's anything they can't begin to approach understanding, given enough
time and the right tools.
>The idea that we can define these terms, or this (x), or the Creator, is
>really the limit of what we can say about them. We're too human to
>understand something that is greater than human.
We're also too human to simply throw our hands up and walk away.
>> >One man's facts are another man's beliefs.
>>
>> That doesn't quite make sense. I don't see how one person could "know"
>> something, while another will "believe" it, when they're both thinking of
>> the same thing.
>
>Consider two witnesses at a crime scene, say, a murder. Each one said the
>other killed the victim. You would assume, logically, that one is lying.
>Or perhaps, for some contorted logic-puzzle reason, they are lying by
>omission, the fact that they both killed the victim. I would say, rather,
>that there was no objective event but two subjective events. Don't
>worry, though. As a jury member I would fulfill my socially contracted
>duties to convict based on evidence, yada yada and acquit based on crappy
>prosecution (not to mention the prosecutor's hairstyle) yada yada.
This doesn't quite qualify as being "two subjective events." Both
individuals have experienced the same events. Lies don't change reality
at its basic level.
>But Everything we know about the event is interpreted through the evidence,
>the scientific analysis of it, and testimony. Ultimately, however, every
>person, given the same evidence, testimony, yada, will come up with a
>different understanding, a different picture, of what happened. Now we
>have the two initial, and 12 secondary (jury) ideas/beliefs about what
>happened at the crime scene. Heck, even a video of the crime would be
>interpreted by everyone. It is on the juror's subjective
>ideas/beliefs/conclusions about what is truthful that he will decide.
>Discussion in the jury room will change the elements of the truth (as a
>juror sees it) in emphasis and organization, that is, in general
>understanding, but it won't change the fact that a juror only knows what
>he hears.
Courtroom decisions are made on such a smorgasboard of human
idiosyncracies that it's not really a swell idea to define "truth" with
them. There may be any number of differing perceptions of an event, but
only one thing really happened. I don't think reality is a matter of
opinion or consensus.
>> One person's "fact" will be another person's "absurdity," is what I'm
>> guessing you may have meant.
>
>A lot of the sci.physics people consider absurd the idea that there is no
>objective truth. I, on the other hand, see it as an inescapable
>conclusion. (As fallout of my conclusion, I don't have a problem with
>this disparity, and they necessarily would.)
Again, I think there's a problem with semantics here, and a
differentiation should be made between "truth" and "reality."
>> People being unable to understand each other's viewpoints has more to do
>> with communications ability, and the ability to use their psychological
>> and historical backgrounds to fit those viewpoints into a context.
>
>There's only so much you can squeeze through language. Hell, even
>telepathy (a la your basic sci-fi) has hideously low bandwidth for
>communicated complete *ideas*.
Especially if you get the garlicky aftertaste of their most recent meal
with whatever it is that their trying to "tell" you.
>> Religion hasn't changed much in the last 1500 years. Aristotle lived in
>> the 4th century BC (and it has changed quite a bit since then).
>> More to the point, any major changes have been mainly the result of a new
>> religion appearing, or an old one disappearing.
>
>I see. So religions don't change..by definition? I can see why you'd say
>that, and I'm not entirely sure I'd disagree. They just replace one
>another and this creates the illusion (or reality, your choice) of change?
Yep. It's mainly a historical perspective, I admit. I'll also add that in
many cases, the "new" religion wasn't much of a change either. Islam and
Christianity retain more components of Judaism than they'd like to admit,
Buddhism reiterated much of what already existed in Confucianism, and
early Christianity allowed several of the cultures it assimilated to keep
their old traditions, albeit with different labels.
The most sweeping change I can think of would be in the Americas, where
the older religions were largely trampled into near-death. they still
exist, though, just on a smaller scale.
>> There's a wide gulf between faith and trust. Trust typically has to be
>> earned, and is based on a set of previously-proven principles, while faith
>> seems to be a reflexive act, i.e.: taking something "for granted."
>
>Trust gained through experience is just that. What you have is someone
>who conveys to you a model of understanding <something> and because the
>model is so successful for you, you tend to believe that the modeler is
>capable now, and perhaps in the future, of offering further valuable
>"understanding" or reality models thereof.
It's still not taken blindly, nor is it unwavering. I've seen many
perfectly respectable researchers turn into raving loonies. Fred Hoyle
might have been a perfectly good astronomer, as far as his insights into
stellar evolution went, but his ideas of how life originated on Earth
are just absurd.
>> Having never been able to count on anything being certain for longer than
>> five minutes, I feel the latter is foolish.
>
>Aw, did those Geometry Proofs in 9th grade bug you so?
Well, yes, but that's not important right now.
>Taking something for granted in the manner of faith implies that you
>cannot readily test it.
Depends on how you regard being able to test something. Even a brief
examination of something with regards to its consistency with reality as
a whole can qualify as a test.
>I'd wager that faith implies something about one's standards for testing
>such concepts. If I say that God is createor of all things yada, I
>might test it by trying to find God in all things,
>or finding a "signature" in all things, i.e. if all things contain
>molecules, then all things were made by the same creator. This is my
>test.
Not a very good test. Humans have an innate tendency to look for
patterns, and to find them even if none are really present. It's also
poor reasoning, as it has its conclusion in mind before observations are
made.
>I dunno. Brushing with religious ferver makes my gums bleed. Brushing
>with trust in my dentist takes to long. Brushing to clean my breath, for
>my own satisfaction, is what I require. Zen brushing, you see. And you
>don't have to eat a grasshopper.
But it helps!
Teg Pipes
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>"6. Devotion to some principle; strict fidelity or faithfulness;
>conscientiousness; pious affection or attachment."
>This could certainly apply to the approach of some scientists to science,
>but could also apply to commerce, law, or good oral hygiene. None of
>those would be regarded as religions either.
I'm sorry, you're quite wrong. My girlfriend's oral hygiene
qualifies as a religion.
>Mind you, if there is someplace where lab-coated and safety-goggled
>acolytes prostrate themselves in the bright blue glow of an open reactor
>while a gleaming chrome robot solemnly intones things like "O Planck,
>thou art Constant...," I'd like to know about it.
Um, this kinda does happen. Not like that, but almost.
I'm told that all the old Natural Philosophers like Newton,
Kepler &c. were actually looking at Nature in order to check
out how god thinks. Not all of them, either, but a lot of them.
Take this with a grain of salt, tho: most of my history and
philosophy comes to me as rumors.
-Teg
Louis Nick III
On 1 Jul 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
> Indeed, things for many weren't all that bad, but they could be better.
> The modern average lifespan is twice what it was 1000 years ago. It takes
> a concerted effort to get lost at sea. We don't need to hunt anymore.
Yeah, but we have our own hurdles to face. Most of us don't actually
access directly all of the resources that we need to survive. So, we all
need to get the next best thing, money, with which to obtain said
resources. This is a challenge for many, a different but similar
challenge, demanding different strengths (intellectual versus physical)
and different organization (governments versus tribal hiearchies, etc.) so
essentially we are merely different. Which evades my point. This had to
do with you not wanting to live in a hut by a bog (or at least thinking
that you would be doing so). So. Are we really different, that is, less
capable of achieving contextual goals (success, money, the tribe-chiefs
daughter) or gaining ruling power, or achieving fulfillment? All these
things are either products of the society one lives in, or products of
one's own humanity or human context. As I see it. Sure, you, cast into a
hut by a bog with bad newsfeed would not reach fulfillment, but those same
hut-dwellers, with no knowledge of the HappyNet that pervades most sites
except yours, can reach that fulfillment that one can have when one only
gets the rec.pets.* hierarchy.
> >No way to tell. Even cosmologists at the height of modernity (now) say
> >taht we'll never be able to see within some 100,000 years of _The
> >Beginning_. That's where the philosophers check in. At any rate, I
> >wouldn't deny people their truths. I'm just telling you the truth as I
> >see it.
>
> Understood. I'd simply prefer to keep "Truth" and "Reality" separate, and
> not leap to mystical conclusions where the evidence runs out. Deductive
> reasoning works better, and is a lot more fun.
Works better for you, and it's easier to convince other people. It is
objectively fun, however. At any rate, as a cafe philosopher friend
says, "deductive reasoning is all we got." It's mostly repeatable, it can
be intuitive, and it's easy to teach, especially with symbolic methods.
But evidence does run out, and some people don't wish to stop there.
> >Now, logic isn't the only way of approaching that sort of thing. Yes, it
> >is chock full of interesting conflicts, but no more than rec.org.mensa on
> >a slow day. But one must realize that the great O.O. will be something
> >greater than one can currenmtly even begin to approach understanding.
>
> I have an unusual amount of confidence in humans, and don't quite think
> there's anything they can't begin to approach understanding, given enough
> time and the right tools.
It's not that unusual, your confidence. It's probably a species-memory
thing. But how do we approach that which we can't conceive or perceive
(by definition)?
> >The idea that we can define these terms, or this (x), or the Creator, is
> >really the limit of what we can say about them. We're too human to
> >understand something that is greater than human.
>
> We're also too human to simply throw our hands up and walk away.
Aye. That's why we're here, in alt.sci.joe-bay.
> >> That doesn't quite make sense. I don't see how one person could "know"
> >> something, while another will "believe" it, when they're both thinking of
> >> the same thing.
> >
> >Consider two witnesses at a crime scene, say, a murder. Each one said the
> >other killed the victim. You would assume, logically, that one is lying.
> >Or perhaps, for some contorted logic-puzzle reason, they are lying by
> >omission, the fact that they both killed the victim. I would say, rather,
> >that there was no objective event but two subjective events. Don't
> >worry, though. As a jury member I would fulfill my socially contracted
> >duties to convict based on evidence, yada yada and acquit based on crappy
> >prosecution (not to mention the prosecutor's hairstyle) yada yada.
>
> This doesn't quite qualify as being "two subjective events." Both
> individuals have experienced the same events. Lies don't change reality
> at its basic level.
They could both be telling the truth. They didn't observe the same
events. Even if there was an objective murder, an objective body, weapon,
etc. Each observation by the two witnesses was biased by the respective
witness. Essentially, they experienced the same events, but observed them
differently. A murder is a fairly insensitive scale to discuss this on,
but suppose we took a guy from 200 years ago, and a guy 200 years in the
future, show them Rush Limbaugh, and ask them what they see.
This begs the question: is there an objective Rush Limbaugh?
> >But Everything we know about the event is interpreted through the evidence,
> >the scientific analysis of it, and testimony. Ultimately, however, every
> >person, given the same evidence, testimony, yada, will come up with a
> >different understanding, a different picture, of what happened. Now we
> >have the two initial, and 12 secondary (jury) ideas/beliefs about what
> >happened at the crime scene. Heck, even a video of the crime would be
> >interpreted by everyone. It is on the juror's subjective
> >ideas/beliefs/conclusions about what is truthful that he will decide.
> >Discussion in the jury room will change the elements of the truth (as a
> >juror sees it) in emphasis and organization, that is, in general
> >understanding, but it won't change the fact that a juror only knows what
> >he hears.
>
> Courtroom decisions are made on such a smorgasboard of human
> idiosyncracies that it's not really a swell idea to define "truth" with
> them.
Well, the courtroom is just an example, and probably a bad one because
people have a lot of diferent ideas of what goes on in a courtroom with
respect to truth (politicking, manipulation, lying, prejudice,
journalistic interference, and the Knights Templar).
> There may be any number of differing perceptions of an event, but
> only one thing really happened. I don't think reality is a matter of
> opinion or consensus.
Okay. I don't believe that "only one thing really happened." That is an
objective truth. I'd say that two people really truly believe ("know")
that what they saw is an objective occurence. This does not make it so.
> >A lot of the sci.physics people consider absurd the idea that there is no
> >objective truth. I, on the other hand, see it as an inescapable
> >conclusion. (As fallout of my conclusion, I don't have a problem with
> >this disparity, and they necessarily would.)
>
> Again, I think there's a problem with semantics here, and a
> differentiation should be made between "truth" and "reality."
objective truth = "What _really_ happened" e.g. "reality".
I don't believe that there is a single reality occuring, but multiple
realities. Sort of. I believe a lot of things. Just don't ask me what I
know.
> >There's only so much you can squeeze through language. Hell, even
> >telepathy (a la your basic sci-fi) has hideously low bandwidth for
> >communicated complete *ideas*.
>
> Especially if you get the garlicky aftertaste of their most recent meal
> with whatever it is that their trying to "tell" you.
Just be glad we can't transmit garlic breath.
> >I see. So religions don't change..by definition? I can see why you'd say
> >that, and I'm not entirely sure I'd disagree. They just replace one
> >another and this creates the illusion (or reality, your choice) of change?
>
> Yep. It's mainly a historical perspective, I admit. I'll also add that in
> many cases, the "new" religion wasn't much of a change either. Islam and
> Christianity retain more components of Judaism than they'd like to admit,
> Buddhism reiterated much of what already existed in Confucianism, and
> early Christianity allowed several of the cultures it assimilated to keep
> their old traditions, albeit with different labels.
I can understand your persepctive. I don't really subscribe, but I'll
bear this in mind.
> The most sweeping change I can think of would be in the Americas, where
> the older religions were largely trampled into near-death. they still
> exist, though, just on a smaller scale.
And so do their Gods.
> >Trust gained through experience is just that. What you have is someone
> >who conveys to you a model of understanding <something> and because the
> >model is so successful for you, you tend to believe that the modeler is
> >capable now, and perhaps in the future, of offering further valuable
> >"understanding" or reality models thereof.
>
> It's still not taken blindly, nor is it unwavering. I've seen many
> perfectly respectable researchers turn into raving loonies. Fred Hoyle
> might have been a perfectly good astronomer, as far as his insights into
> stellar evolution went, but his ideas of how life originated on Earth
> are just absurd.
But he was a helluva card player. I don't see anythign wrong with what we
first (and second) think is "absurd" or the product of loonies. The only
person that has to believe those theories is Hoyle. Anyone else is just
window-dressing.
> >> Having never been able to count on anything being certain for longer than
> >> five minutes, I feel the latter is foolish.
> >
> >Aw, did those Geometry Proofs in 9th grade bug you so?
>
> Well, yes, but that's not important right now.
What, did you drop back to 8th? Me too. I decided to wait until I
finished my 3rd year at college before returning to old Sidney Lanier
Middle School in Fairfax VA.
> >Taking something for granted in the manner of faith implies that you
> >cannot readily test it.
>
> Depends on how you regard being able to test something. Even a brief
> examination of something with regards to its consistency with reality as
> a whole can qualify as a test.
It does, but all that means is that the tests are subjective. (especially
if reality is subjective, as I believe on occasion.)
> >I'd wager that faith implies something about one's standards for testing
> >such concepts. If I say that God is createor of all things yada, I
> >might test it by trying to find God in all things,
> >or finding a "signature" in all things, i.e. if all things contain
> >molecules, then all things were made by the same creator. This is my
> >test.
>
> Not a very good test. Humans have an innate tendency to look for
> patterns, and to find them even if none are really present. It's also
> poor reasoning, as it has its conclusion in mind before observations are
> made.
What if I don't buy into the "innate tendency" argument, a product of your
reality (perhaps not mine) and relatively recent psychological science?
What's important is that the test works for the self.
> >I dunno. Brushing with religious ferver makes my gums bleed. Brushing
> >with trust in my dentist takes to long. Brushing to clean my breath, for
> >my own satisfaction, is what I require. Zen brushing, you see. And you
> >don't have to eat a grasshopper.
>
> But it helps!
Hope it does.
Van Piercy
In article <4r2avi$8...@nostromo.clas.ufl.edu>,
Richard Crew <cr...@math.ufl.edu> wrote:
>Referring to postmodernism, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> : _Utne_Reader_ declared it dead in 1987. And _they're_ out
> : in Minnesota or somewhere.
That would be oot in the Miny-soda don'cha know? "Fargo" was a gas.
> So what _are_ people doing now? I hope to God it's not
> postpostmodernism....
>
> --Rich
So what _are_ people doing now? Maybe still questioning ideas such as:
that all "progress" is progress or that all "progress" is good, that all
modern ideas descend from God or something as unimpeachable, that every
thing, belief, custom or person rationalized, numbered, surveyed and
employed is happier, that every new technology is a real advance, that
language works best when it is "bite" sized and impossibly stripped of
metaphor, that gender and race are immaterial, that entertainment is never
artful or that art is never entertaining, that all significant human
questions are reducible to the purview of a microscope, that the ideal
human community is Las Vegas, that culture is candy-floss, that we've
transcended nature, that capitalism is just, that homelessness and poverty
are lifestyle choices, that formula feeding doesn't compromise your baby's
health and intelligence, that public schools are the bedrock of democracy,
that America, Inc. is always worth dying for, and questions like that.
Van
--
"The scientist has no unique right to ignore the likely consequences of
what he does." --Noam Chomsky. _The Chomsky Reader_. Ed. James Peck. New
York: Pantheon, 1987. 201.
Jaffo
Wasting taxpayer money in alt.religion.kibology, rmh...@micron.net (Rose Marie
Holt) wrote:
:BTW, this has been a difficult thread for me to follow, especially since
:they dont allow calculators or slide rules in a.r.k. When I signed up,
:they said there would be no homework. I want my money back.
Me too!
Add me to this list!
<louis nick>STOP USING SPREADSHEETS IN ALT.RELIGION.KIBOLOGY!</louis nick>
--
Didn't Mariana Sirtis agree to do the new ElfQuest movie?
rah...@sonic.net - Elf of the redwoods, sez "I don't crosspost.
I post Followups to other people's Crossposted posts on occasion."
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jaffo
Michael Straight
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
[concerning the current model for planetary orbits]
>But the model does not convey any sort of objective truth, despite what we
>are taught tothat effect. Yes, it IS a waste to challenge these notions
>for scientific reason. Yes, you WILL be considered a regular loony if you
>do so. Yes, we HAVE to teach students taht this sort of thing is true, in
>order taht they may move on to bigger and better things. But in the great
>name of SCIENCE, it's wrong, I tellya. It's a lie to say that we know
>these things, that we have a complete grasp of the "facts" involved, and
>it's horseshit to say that the model can't be understood anyhow else.
Ok, so it's important now and then for everybody doing science to take a
deep breath and say, in unison (in seventeen point helvetica bold), "THIS
IS ONLY A MODEL!" But most of the time, it's pointless to go on about how
our current model only approximates The Truth unless you can propose and
defend a better model to replace it. Once you've said "THIS IS ONLY A
MODEL" then what do you do? Stand around in an epistomological stupor?
No, you get back to work looking at the universe, refining the model,
hopefully keeping your ear to the ground for other models that might
explain what the current one doesn't, begging the government for money
because the stuff you're finding out Might Be Useful Somday.
In some ways you remind me of Lee Bumgardner discovering that Baywatch is
actually just an excuse to oggle people in swimsuits. (Actually, that
metaphor is entirely wrong, but I like it so much, I'm not going to
delete it. So there.)
>> if both
>> sides spend half their time saying that, of course we can have no direct
>> knowledge of these things unmediated by our senses which are, of course
>> fallible, as are our methods of observing, blah blah blah. That's what
>> philosophers are for.
>
>Why separate science from philosophy? Why can't one drive the other?
Why separate astronomy from psychology? Why seperate organic chemistry
from geology? Because most people have enough trouble trying to be
competent in one discipline. If you can be a competent astronomer and a
competent philosopher, more power to you, but a lot of people who try end
up being armchair philosophers or astronomers, constantly re-inventing the
wheel because they don't know the field well enough.
Michael Straight HNJH;HJLS "epistomological stupor."
FLEOEVDETYHOEUPROEONREWMEILECSOFMOERSGTIRVAENRGEEARDSTVHIESBIITBTLHEEPSRIACYK
Ethical Mirth Gas/"I'm chaste alright."/Magic Hitler Hats/"Hath grace limits?"
"Irate Clam Thighs!"/Chili Hamster Tag/The Gilt Charisma/"I gather this calm."
Michael Straight
In article <4r6ghc$r...@ds8.scri.fsu.edu>,
Jim Carr <j...@ds8.scri.fsu.edu> wrote:
>stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
>>
>>What you say may be true, but since I don't have enough math background to
>>do what you suggest, I'll have to take you're word for it. 99% of what we
>>(as individuals) know we know because somebody told us and we believed it.
>
>I think you underestimate how much we learn from our own observations,
>or the importance of our experiences in deciding whether to believe
>what we are told. It is only "belief" if you accept it solely on
>authority, which will not be the case if you analyze and process what
>you have been told within the context of your own knowledge.
This is where I disagree with you. Everything I know about how computers
work, for instance, is accepted soley "on authority" (to use your
formulation), since I have no direct, sensory exprience with how computers
are made, how programs are executed, how information is sent from my
computer to yours. Everything I know (which isn't as much as many of you,
but would still fill quite a few pages) I have been told by someone else.
Now it fits with my experience of *using* computers, but the beliefs and
models I have about how they work are based entirely on accepting other
people's word for it (and doubtless some of my models are inaccurate).
Now, it's true I think I have lots of good reasons for believing these
people, but I also think I have good reasons for believing what
Christians tell me about God (which I imagine is the sort of thing you
would want to classify as accepted "soley on authority"). In both cases,
where I haven't experienced something for myself, I'm forced to use my
judgment about the trustworthiness of the source, and consider what is
said in the light of what else I know. But it still boils down to belief.
>>For me to believe that, say, neutrinos exist, I have to either take the
>>word of physicists like yourself on faith or I would have to invest a few
>>years learning math and physics in order to prove it to myself,
>Not necessarily. The idea is not that complicated. The neutrino was
>proposed to explain an apparent absence of energy/momentum conservation
>in beta decay. If it is real, it should be possible to do the inverse
>reaction where capture of a neutrino causes the beta decay reaction to
>go in reverse. That is what was done.
I don't doubt what you say, but to really know it for myself I would first
have to do some basic experiments in physics and prove the laws of
energy/momentum conservation to myself (which I learned in school by rote,
on faith), then I'd have to prove to myself the existence of that beta
decay observation (and doubtless a ton of other physics along the way if I
didn't want to take anything on faith), and several years later I might be
ready to look for neutrinos.
I'm not saying our beliefs are arational, but I do insist that most of
what you know, you accept because you believe the source to be
trustworthy, not becuase you have personally observed or reasoned it out
yourself.
But then, Michael Straight believes in Kibo too.
Michael Straight
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96070...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>Consider two witnesses at a crime scene, say, a murder. Each one said the
>other killed the victim. You would assume, logically, that one is lying.
>Or perhaps, for some contorted logic-puzzle reason, they are lying by
>omission, the fact that they both killed the victim. I would say, rather,
>that there was no objective event but two subjective events. Don't
>worry, though. As a jury member I would fulfill my socially contracted
>duties to convict based on evidence, yada yada and acquit based on crappy
>prosecution (not to mention the prosecutor's hairstyle) yada yada. But
>Everything we know about the event is interpreted through the evidence,
>the scientific analysis of it, and testimony. Ultimately, however, every
>person, given the same evidence, testimony, yada, will come up with a
>different understanding, a different picture, of what happened. Now we
>have the two initial, and 12 secondary (jury) ideas/beliefs about what
>happened at the crime scene. Heck, even a video of the crime would be
>interpreted by everyone. It is on the juror's subjective
>ideas/beliefs/conclusions about what is truthful that he will decide.
>Discussion in the jury room will change the elements of the truth (as a
>juror sees it) in emphasis and organization, that is, in general
>understanding, but it won't change the fact that a juror only knows what
>he hears.
This is all very interesting and postmodernism has helped us see what you
illustrate here, but the really important question that postmodernism
raises is how important is all this? How often does a guilty man go free
or an innocent man get convicted? How often are our perceptions of
reality so different from each other and from what "really" happened that
it matters?
As someone else mentioned in this thread, postmodern epistomology keeps
running smack into the Argument From Engineering. If we understand the
world so poorly, why are we so successful at making it do what we want?
If communication is so faulty, why do I have the impression that we're
really having a discussion here and that I understand what you are saying
well enough to make intelligent replies?
What you're saying is important, but I don't think it's important enough
for us to bring science to a halt until everyone doing science can
articulate the latest refinements in epistomology.
>A lot of the sci.physics people consider absurd the idea that there is no
>objective truth. I, on the other hand, see it as an inescapable
>conclusion. (As fallout of my conclusion, I don't have a problem with
>this disparity, and they necessarily would.)
But wouldn't you say that subjective truth is usually good enough? So
good that, for the sake of doing business, we can just drop the
"subjective" and call it "truth" while we argue about the latest model
for what goes on inside a star? (And maybe talk about how it's actually
all subjective over coffee later that evening?)
Michael Straight will probably be in Seattle again this August.
Matthew J. McIrvin
In article <4r8v9j$n...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
> So what _are_ people doing now? Maybe still questioning ideas such as:
> that all "progress" is progress or that all "progress" is good, that all
> modern ideas descend from God or something as unimpeachable, that every
> thing, belief, custom or person rationalized, numbered, surveyed and
> employed is happier, that every new technology is a real advance, that
> language works best when it is "bite" sized and impossibly stripped of
> metaphor, that gender and race are immaterial, that entertainment is never
> artful or that art is never entertaining, that all significant human
> questions are reducible to the purview of a microscope, that the ideal
> human community is Las Vegas, that culture is candy-floss, that we've
> transcended nature, that capitalism is just, that homelessness and poverty
> are lifestyle choices, that formula feeding doesn't compromise your baby's
> health and intelligence, that public schools are the bedrock of democracy,
> that America, Inc. is always worth dying for, and questions like that.
My point elsewhere in this thread was partly that a lot of these
ideas aren't exactly part of "modernism" in the first place, they're more
like holdovers from 18th-century rationalism, which modernism was
supposed to have supplanted back in the early 20th century. Some of them
went out of style with the rise of Romanticism in the 19th century.
Actually, I never got much of a clear idea of what that modernism thing
was anyway, considering as it was supposed to simultaneously embrace, say,
Jean-Paul Sartre, Niels Bohr, Henry Ford, Gertrude Stein, and Jackson
Pollock. So it's hard for me to see how the questioning stated above is
all "postmodern," except in the purely chronological sense that it's
taking place in an era following the "modern" one. If the above is taken
as an indication of postmodernism then we might have to count William
Blake, Ernest Hemingway, e. e. cummings, Kurt Vonnegut, Edgar Allan Poe,
Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as postmodern, at
which point the term's significance starts to erode, IMHO.
--
Matt McIrvin <http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/>
Louis Nick III
On 2 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >Why separate science from philosophy? Why can't one drive the other?
>
> Why separate astronomy from psychology? Why seperate organic chemistry
> from geology? Because most people have enough trouble trying to be
> competent in one discipline.
You don't have to be competant in philosophy to engage in it. Just hang
in any beatnik coffee shop for a while for proof of that. Second, the
things you considered separating are all sciences.
>If you can be a competent astronomer and a
> competent philosopher, more power to you, but a lot of people who try end
> up being armchair philosophers or astronomers, constantly re-inventing the
> wheel because they don't know the field well enough.
With respect to Astronomy, strictly, what's the point of knowing any Kant
or Freud if you can't apply it to the Standard Model, or
perhaps Cosmology? None.
But if you can, any helps, all is nice, and you can't really reinvent the
wheel, since Immanuel and Sigmund never approached that which you are
approaching.
> Michael Straight HNJH;HJLS "epistomological stupor."
IHNJH, I<prefer>TS "metaphysical rupture."
Louis Nick III
On 2 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >Consider two witnesses at a crime scene, say, a murder. Each one said the
> >other killed the victim. You would assume, logically, that one is lying.
> >Or perhaps, for some contorted logic-puzzle reason, they are lying by
> >omission, the fact that they both killed the victim. I would say, rather,
> >that there was no objective event but two subjective events. Don't
> >worry, though. As a jury member I would fulfill my socially contracted
> >duties to convict based on evidence, yada yada and acquit based on crappy
> >prosecution (not to mention the prosecutor's hairstyle) yada yada. But
> >Everything we know about the event is interpreted through the evidence,
> >the scientific analysis of it, and testimony. Ultimately, however, every
> >person, given the same evidence, testimony, yada, will come up with a
> >different understanding, a different picture, of what happened. Now we
> >have the two initial, and 12 secondary (jury) ideas/beliefs about what
> >happened at the crime scene. Heck, even a video of the crime would be
> >interpreted by everyone. It is on the juror's subjective
> >ideas/beliefs/conclusions about what is truthful that he will decide.
> >Discussion in the jury room will change the elements of the truth (as a
> >juror sees it) in emphasis and organization, that is, in general
> >understanding, but it won't change the fact that a juror only knows what
> >he hears.
>
> This is all very interesting and postmodernism has helped us see what you
> illustrate here, but the really important question that postmodernism
> raises is how important is all this? How often does a guilty man go free
> or an innocent man get convicted? How often are our perceptions of
> reality so different from each other and from what "really" happened that
> it matters? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I would never assume such a thing exists. Also, I thing it's a fallacy to
believe postmodernism will have application until the modern age ends.
> As someone else mentioned in this thread, postmodern epistomology keeps
> running smack into the Argument From Engineering. If we understand the
> world so poorly, why are we so successful at making it do what we want?
> If communication is so faulty, why do I have the impression that we're
> really having a discussion here and that I understand what you are saying
> well enough to make intelligent replies?
Because you are applying that which is Michael Straight onto the
perceptions of Michael Straight, and Michael Straight fills in the blanks,
for you. You only believe you understand. The good news is that I
believe you understand too.
> What you're saying is important, but I don't think it's important enough
> for us to bring science to a halt until everyone doing science can
> articulate the latest refinements in epistomology.
I was thinking just thinking just MASER research (_M_achine for _A_ssuring
_S_upport of _E_soteric _R_esearch.)
> >A lot of the sci.physics people consider absurd the idea that there is no
> >objective truth. I, on the other hand, see it as an inescapable
> >conclusion. (As fallout of my conclusion, I don't have a problem with
> >this disparity, and they necessarily would.)
>
> But wouldn't you say that subjective truth is usually good enough?
Yes, usually, good enough if you don't mind the error you would
necessarily induce, or are at least willing to live with it.
> So
> good that, for the sake of doing business, we can just drop the
> "subjective" and call it "truth" while we argue about the latest model
> for what goes on inside a star? (And maybe talk about how it's actually
> all subjective over coffee later that evening?)
Mmm, sure. As long as we "know" "better," right?
Michael Straight
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.9607...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>On 2 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
>> or an innocent man get convicted? How often are our perceptions of
>> reality so different from each other and from what "really" happened that
>> it matters? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I would never assume such a thing exists. Also, I thing it's a fallacy to
>believe postmodernism will have application until the modern age ends.
Just because we've discovered that reality is harder to get at than we
thought, you're going to give up, close your eyes, hold your hands over
your ears and say over and over "NYA NYA TRUTH DOESN'T EXIST! I CAN'T SEE
IT OR HEAR IT (INFALLIBLY) SO IT MUST NOT EXIST!"
Also, your second sentence makes no sense. We have to wait for the stars
to change their alignment and the age of Aquarius to begin before we can
start using any of the insights of postmodernism?
>> As someone else mentioned in this thread, postmodern epistomology keeps
>> running smack into the Argument From Engineering. If we understand the
>> world so poorly, why are we so successful at making it do what we want?
>> If communication is so faulty, why do I have the impression that we're
>> really having a discussion here and that I understand what you are saying
>> well enough to make intelligent replies?
>Because you are applying that which is Michael Straight onto the
>perceptions of Michael Straight, and Michael Straight fills in the blanks,
>for you. You only believe you understand. The good news is that I
>believe you understand too.
But isn't it suspicous that, although you say I don't "really" understand, I
can do such a good job of fooling you into believing that I do?
You conveniently ignore the first half of my statement. If there's no
such thing as objective reality why do we have so *much* independent
agreement about it? Why are we so successful and so consistent at making
reality do what we want when we treat it as if it had an objective
existence? Why does reality seem so resistent to our attempts to treat it
as totally subjective (i.e. If gravity is just a subjective reality, why
can't *anyone* do the Wile E. Coyote bit of ignoring the edge of the cliff
and continuing to walk on the air?)
And don't try telling me that we agree with each other because our
subjective realities are similar because I'll just ask, "Objectively
similar?"
Michael Straight is "objectively a bozo," according to HappyNet protocols.
E Teflon Piano
On 2 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> Everything I know about how computers
> work, for instance, is accepted soley "on authority" (to use your
> formulation), since I have no direct, sensory exprience with how computers
> are made, how programs are executed, how information is sent from my
> computer to yours. Everything I know (which isn't as much as many of you,
> but would still fill quite a few pages) I have been told by someone else.
>
> Now, it's true I think I have lots of good reasons for believing these
> people, but I also think I have good reasons for believing what
> Christians tell me about God (which I imagine is the sort of thing you
> would want to classify as accepted "soley on authority").
OK. What we at The Institute want to know is whether this belief in
God and Computers can be transferred into a really *useful*
manifestation, like maybe God going through your spreadsheet and
reconciling your entries with your bills and receipts?
E Teflon Piano wants a God that plays dice with the universe, but keeps
score with Quattro Pro.
EISEPOLY(TFE)PIANOENTERPRISES'TRADENAMEFORSATIRE,CALCULATEDMISTATEMENTS&ET
E.Holmes
In alt.religion.kibology, bma...@iglou.iglou.com (Bill Marcum) remarks:
/In article
<Pine.OSF.3.92a.96062...@becker2.u.washington.edu>,
/Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
/>ARE YOU A BOZO?
/>[CHECK ONLY ONE]
/>[ ] YES
/>[ ] NO
/
/I think we're all bozos on this bus.
I hope so. Mommy won't let me ride unless you're
all bozos. She has very high standards and is SO
strict. I only have 2 friends now cause she says
they are the only ones with adequit bozosity. Do
you think you could talk to her?
Bitsy
<shhhhh, don't tell, posting from mommy's account>
--
E.Holmes at http://rampages.onramp.net/~eholmes
"I don't crosspost. I post Followups to other people's Crossposted
posts on occasion." (rah...@sonic.net, Elf of the redwoods)
Louis Nick III
On 3 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >On 2 Jul 1996, Michael Straight wrote:
> >> or an innocent man get convicted? How often are our perceptions of
> >> reality so different from each other and from what "really" happened that
> >> it matters? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> >I would never assume such a thing exists. Also, I thing it's a fallacy to
> >believe postmodernism will have application until the modern age ends.
>
> Just because we've discovered that reality is harder to get at than we
> thought, you're going to give up, close your eyes, hold your hands over
> your ears and say over and over "NYA NYA TRUTH DOESN'T EXIST! I CAN'T SEE
> IT OR HEAR IT (INFALLIBLY) SO IT MUST NOT EXIST!"
Hardly, I just think a scientific approach is a satisfactory one for
attempting to <get to> reality.
> Also, your second sentence makes no sense. We have to wait for the stars
> to change their alignment and the age of Aquarius to begin before we can
> start using any of the insights of postmodernism?
No, but postmodern are those things that just can't be understood (no
matter how much the readers of _Social Text_ will object) during the
current modern. We have to wait for the Age to end before we _will_ start
using the insights without conflict form modernity itself. Modernity
resists postmodernism, or more specifically, postmodernists.
> >Because you are applying that which is Michael Straight onto the
> >perceptions of Michael Straight, and Michael Straight fills in the blanks,
> >for you. You only believe you understand. The good news is that I
> >believe you understand too.
>
> But isn't it suspicous that, although you say I don't "really" understand, I
> can do such a good job of fooling you into believing that I do?
That's a nice thought, but I'm just reading words on a screen. The fact
that I put them together is part of my wanting to believe (so hard that I
really can't remove myself frmo the belief) that people on the other ends,
as it were, of USENET are real human beings with thoughts and
intelligences. You are, right?
> >> As someone else mentioned in this thread, postmodern epistomology keeps
> >> running smack into the Argument From Engineering. If we understand the
> >> world so poorly, why are we so successful at making it do what we want?
> You conveniently ignore the first half of my statement. If there's no
> such thing as objective reality why do we have so *much* independent
> agreement about it? Why are we so successful and so consistent at making
> reality do what we want when we treat it as if it had an objective
> existence? Why does reality seem so resistent to our attempts to treat it
> as totally subjective (i.e. If gravity is just a subjective reality, why
> can't *anyone* do the Wile E. Coyote bit of ignoring the edge of the cliff
> and continuing to walk on the air?)
You want me to explain the success of humanity? It could be a fluke, it
could be a talent, and it could be that there is an objective reality.
Frankly, I don't have anything <more objective> to compare it to. What is
the model of human success in philosophy or engineering?
As for gravity, yes, it is totally subjective, but as long as your beliefs
are open to insight, such as an acceleration of 32 m/s/s, you'll change
your beliefs. At any rate, without a witness, perhaps it is possible. A
witness might apply his beliefs onto the subjective gravity of the Coyote.
And if the Coyote does manage to pull it off, it would be because he
lacked witnesses, and nobody would believe 'im.
Modernity protects itself from postmodernists like Wile E. Coyote.
> And don't try telling me that we agree with each other because our
> subjective realities are similar because I'll just ask, "Objectively
> similar?"
Subjectively similar. I see us as seeing things similarly, but I can't
tell what you see or what The Unmoved Mover, a totally objective being
(in my construction), would see.
Rose Marie Holt
In article <4rbkdm$9...@newz.oit.unc.edu>, stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael
Straight) wrote:
> In article <4r6ghc$r...@ds8.scri.fsu.edu>,
> Jim Carr <j...@ds8.scri.fsu.edu> wrote:
> >stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
> >>
>
> I don't doubt what you say, but to really know it for myself I would first
> have to do some basic experiments in physics and prove the laws of
> energy/momentum conservation to myself (which I learned in school by rote,
> on faith),
Some people say that this is why we need more basic science, math, and
logic education in school and less argument about Evolution, school
prayer, and sex/drug/rock and roll education. If kids learned more real
stuff in school, we wouldn't NEED D.A.R.E.* Your science class should
have had a lab so you could learn about momentum, radioactive decay, etc.
But since it didnt, or since you elected not to take the lab class, please
consider visiting your nearest science museum. Or check out the kids'
section in the nearest B Dalton and pick up an "Explorabook" or a toy
store like the Imaginarium or any store with "Learning" in the name and
get some science kits. There are some neat kids' science education kits
out there that a genuinely curious adult like yourself interested in
making up for a pathetic science education can use. You might need to
sign up for an actual class to learn about radioactive decay. Safety
issues. I'm not sure.
If you really are interested in learning basic science, with experiments
and everything, why, there is nothing stopping you. You cant come to
conclusions without facts, and if you wont believe the facts except by
your own personal experience, why, go out and get some personal
experience. You can even do this with stuff you have at home, like a
stopwatch and a rock (and gravity - but that is widely available).
*I'm high on math
Eli M. Balin
[sci.physics and sci.astro removed from followups. I don't think they're
listening anymore.]
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92a.96070...@becker1.u.washington.edu>,
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>On 1 Jul 1996, Eli M. Balin wrote:
>
>It's not that unusual, your confidence. It's probably a species-memory
>thing. But how do we approach that which we can't conceive or perceive
>(by definition)?
Work around it. Find out as much as possible about the smaller, related
bits and follow whatever leads might exist. Nothing (that I can think of)
has ever been accomplished by attacking huge, grandiose things in one
swell foop without first understanding its components.
At this point, I'll concede that perhaps some things are best left to
philosphy, metaphysics, and the like. I just don't feel that we should
admit that there's anything we can't understand. Personally, I like the
idea of holding something maddeningly huge in my mind.
>> We're also too human to simply throw our hands up and walk away.
>Aye. That's why we're here, in alt.sci.joe-bay.
I just forgot what I was going to say.
>> This doesn't quite qualify as being "two subjective events." Both
>> individuals have experienced the same events. Lies don't change reality
>> at its basic level.
>
>They could both be telling the truth. They didn't observe the same
>events. Even if there was an objective murder, an objective body, weapon,
>etc. Each observation by the two witnesses was biased by the respective
>witness. Essentially, they experienced the same events, but observed them
>differently.
Understood. Akira Kurosawa's _Rashomon_ is a lot like this.
>A murder is a fairly insensitive scale to discuss this on,
>but suppose we took a guy from 200 years ago, and a guy 200 years in the
>future, show them Rush Limbaugh, and ask them what they see.
This reminds me of a scene from _Sleeper_, where Woody Allen (awakened
after a few centuries of cryogenic sleep) is shown an archive of 20th
Century artifacts. His host points to a recording of Howard Cosell and
says, "We think it was a form of torture."
>This begs the question: is there an objective Rush Limbaugh?
Fat. On the radio.
>> >There's only so much you can squeeze through language. Hell, even
>> >telepathy (a la your basic sci-fi) has hideously low bandwidth for
>> >communicated complete *ideas*.
>>
>> Especially if you get the garlicky aftertaste of their most recent meal
>> with whatever it is that their trying to "tell" you.
>
>Just be glad we can't transmit garlic breath.
I'm not sure. I've lately had the feeling that if we could send surface
thoughts, they'd go along with whatever "noise" was present at the time
(daydreams, irritating pop music in infinite loops, unscratchable itches
in the small of the back, and garlic breath). Telepathy seems like one of
the worst things that could happen to a brain. I'd personally prefer
being able to hurl large objects around, or make people think I wasn't
actually in the room. I'm already able to cause headaches.
>> The most sweeping change I can think of would be in the Americas, where
>> the older religions were largely trampled into near-death. they still
>> exist, though, just on a smaller scale.
>
>And so do their Gods.
As far as their believers are concerned, yes.
I should explain, at this point, that as an anthropologist, I have to
regard a culture's beliefs as perfectly valid within that culture. I'll
spare you an explanation of the proper methods of discussing "sympathetic
magic" themes in an ethnographic forum as an illustration.
I should also mention that I'm not exactly sure if I've maintained any
sort of dialectical consistency throughout this discussion.
>> It's still not taken blindly, nor is it unwavering. I've seen many
>> perfectly respectable researchers turn into raving loonies. Fred Hoyle
>> might have been a perfectly good astronomer, as far as his insights into
>> stellar evolution went, but his ideas of how life originated on Earth
>> are just absurd.
>
>But he was a helluva card player. I don't see anythign wrong with what we
>first (and second) think is "absurd" or the product of loonies. The only
>person that has to believe those theories is Hoyle. Anyone else is just
>window-dressing.
But it's window-dressing that defines the window, at least to those who
look at it. Hoyle's "Seeds from Space" theory (guest starring Ricardo
Montalban as "Khan") provided a crutch for Von Daniken's drivel about
aliens creating every non-Western civilization. The mindless rabble who
persist in clinging to this nonsense have been a real pain to
archaeology, in part since they denigrate the entire field by casting a
kooky glow over the whole thing (and this has happened; NBC keeps running
a faux-documentary in which every Atlantean-channeler, Pyramidiot, and
_-_Winston is allowed to spout their nonsense a larger audience than I'd
like to think of). It's because of this that I'm considering changing my
area of concentration from Central America to China (an area refreshingly
free of pyramids).
>> Not a very good test. Humans have an innate tendency to look for
>> patterns, and to find them even if none are really present. It's also
>> poor reasoning, as it has its conclusion in mind before observations are
>> made.
>
>What if I don't buy into the "innate tendency" argument, a product of your
>reality (perhaps not mine) and relatively recent psychological science?
I hope this doesn't mean you see faces on Mars.
Anyhow, the tendency does exist. Science, in fact, is an
institutionalization of this tendency.
>What's important is that the test works for the self.
Tell that to Fleishmann and Pons. I'm sure they'll find it *very* consoling.
Michael Straight
In article <rmholt-0407...@cnam011p10.nam.micron.net>,
Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@micron.net> wrote:
>If you really are interested in learning basic science, with experiments
>and everything, why, there is nothing stopping you. You cant come to
>conclusions without facts, and if you wont believe the facts except by
>your own personal experience, why, go out and get some personal
>experience. You can even do this with stuff you have at home, like a
>stopwatch and a rock (and gravity - but that is widely available).
Actually, the point of my post is that I and everyone else *do* believe
lots of stuff outside our own personal experience.
Michael Straight will have to try that thing with the rock though.
Ben Weiner
stra...@email.unc.edu (Michael Straight) writes:
:Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@micron.net> wrote:
:>If you really are interested in learning basic science, with experiments
:>and everything, why, there is nothing stopping you. You cant come to
:>conclusions without facts, and if you wont believe the facts except by
:>your own personal experience, why, go out and get some personal
:>experience. You can even do this with stuff you have at home, like a
:>stopwatch and a rock (and gravity - but that is widely available).
:Actually, the point of my post is that I and everyone else *do* believe
:lots of stuff outside our own personal experience.
:Michael Straight will have to try that thing with the rock though.
That's the one where you re-enact Boswell's famous experiment,
where he dropped a rock on Dr. Johnson's foot and timed how long
it took for Dr. Johnson to shout, "Thus do I refute Berkeley!"
Right?
Ben Weiner thinks the hard part of replicating this experiment will be
getting an audible response out of Dr. Johnson.
--
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald
Weiner's Corollary: A scientific paper is a grant's way of getting grants.
Joseph Bay
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>Louis "Can I triple major Law, AStronomy, Physics, and minor CHID? How
>many degrees is that? How many Kelvins?" Nick
CHID? Cannibalistic Humanoid Igloo Dwellers?
Joseph Bay
Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>> living in huts on the edge of a bog somewhere, dying of skinned kneecaps
>> and hiding under our beds at the sound of thunder.
>This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if man is
Of course. *MY* life would have been so much simpler if that infection
had killed me off when I was six, rather than having those arrogant
"scientists" give me antibiotics.
>I'd venture, at least, that one could reach a similar state of happiness or
>satisfaction with one's life back then as you can now.
Ya think? I mean, sure, you could maybe raid your neighboring clan for
a few cattle or something, but that seems to be the height of it.
Mystical experience notwithstanding, of course.
>No way to tell. Even cosmologists at the height of modernity (now) say
>taht we'll never be able to see within some 100,000 years of _The
>Beginning_.
Really? I thought it was like 10^-10 seconds or something. But all my
cosmology comes to me as rumors from the Wilford Beauty Academy.
> That's where the philosophers check in.
"Mr Descartes, did you take all that liquor from the honor bar?"
"I think not!" *poof!*
David Swanson
In article <4s6e2j$o...@er7.rutgers.edu>
b...@eden.rutgers.edu (Joseph Bay) writes:
> Louis Nick III <sn...@u.washington.edu> writes:
>
> >> living in huts on the edge of a bog somewhere, dying of skinned kneecaps
> >> and hiding under our beds at the sound of thunder.
>
> >This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if man is
>
> Of course. *MY* life would have been so much simpler if that infection
> had killed me off when I was six, rather than having those arrogant
> "scientists" give me antibiotics.
>
> >I'd venture, at least, that one could reach a similar state of happiness or
> >satisfaction with one's life back then as you can now.
>
> Ya think? I mean, sure, you could maybe raid your neighboring clan for
> a few cattle or something, but that seems to be the height of it.
> Mystical experience notwithstanding, of course.
>
>
> >No way to tell. Even cosmologists at the height of modernity (now) say
> >taht we'll never be able to see within some 100,000 years of _The
> >Beginning_.
>
> Really? I thought it was like 10^-10 seconds or something. But all my
> cosmology comes to me as rumors from the Wilford Beauty Academy.
Would that all cosmology and cosmogonies and cosmopolities came from
beauty academies along with the cattle, for then nobody would build
huts on the edges of bogs where they're bound to get washed away in a
flood of epistemology once thunder becomes transcendental
disequilibrium whether or not the streets are paved and the children
wear short pants, for sooner or later, as sure as the sunrise, all
academies, atheneaia, and lyceums must evolve into temples of Vesta if
they know what's good for them and for us and if you can't have
progress without eugenics you can at least settle for the proper
lip-gloss.
David
"Intelligence, as distinct from the older conception of reason, is
inherently involved in action. Moreover, there is no opposition
between it and emotion. There is such a thing as passionate
intelligence, as ardor in behalf of light shining into the murky places
of social existence, and as zeal for its refreshing and purifying
effect. The whole story of man shows that there are no objects that
may not deeply stir engrossing emotion. One of the few experiments in
the attachment of emotion to ends that mankind has not tried is that of
devotion, so intense as to be religious, to intelligence as a force in
social action." John Dewey