Marchal wrote:
> The difference between the first person and the third person is > basically the same as the difference between having an headache and > having a friend having an headhache. True, but I believe of much greater importance for this discussion is the difference in the obervations made by two observers, of a particular event, when their continued existence is contingent in different degree by this event. They will experience with different degree of probability, the occurence of this event. The key is the contingency relationship between the event and the observers. It defines the observers' "frame of reference." Each observer, then, has his own first person perspective of the event. First person perspective is therefore the fundamental perspective. Third person perspective is an illusion shared by two observers when they occupy the exact same frame of reference (as defined by the set of contingencies on their existence). Bruno, Jacques and George have a third person perspective in common because the laws of physics and other earthly environments that sustain them are identical. >Science is (ideally) a pure 3-person discourse and will ever be. Let me qualify the above statement in my own words. The development by a group of observers of an "objective" (i.e., third person) science is only possible if they restrict themselves to the domain of events and to the studies of laws that affect their existence equally. Here is a thought experiment to illustrate this point. Let us say that a ***very reliable*** machine is designed to instantly kill several scientists unless the natural laws are modified to a different configuration than the one we currently have, but still capable of sustaining life. The wave function of these scientist will then be restricted to a set of worlds in which laws of physics are different. These scientists will have absolutely no awareness of having their wave function restricted. They could even find other scientists so restricted, and together they could develop an "objective" third person science customized to their world, and share what they believe to be "objective" information. Their science will be different from ours, but from their common points of view, it would be objective. Jacques Mallah wrote: >Does "merde" have a special meaning, the way "crap" does? Marchal responded: >Some time ago "merde" was considered as very vulgar, but since then it has been overthrown by "shit", or >worse ... "Merde" seems almost polite in comparison. I don't know about "crap". It seems to me we don't >use that word (in Belgium). Really? "shit" has become a French word? Talk about Franglais! I rather go back to the good old days when Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, said on the steps of Parliament, to a group of strikers, "Mange la merde." George
