I mark my small part below with brackets [ ]. John Mikes wrote: > Rex, or Brent? (I am mixed up between th (>->>)s and the unmarked > text. No signature. > I rather paste my cpmment to the end of this posting, since it > pertains to the last par.-s. > John M > > On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Rex Allen <rexallen...@gmail.com > <mailto:rexallen...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker > <meeke...@dslextreme.com <mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com>> wrote: > > Rex Allen wrote: > >> What is your alternative to the "everything" universal acid? That > >> things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's > ultimately no > >> explanation for that. Right? > >> > > > > Exactly so. "It's just happened that way" and "Everything > happens and > > so this happens too." are both equally useless. Progress is > only made > > when we can explain why this rather than that. > > So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need > some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an > external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this > external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence > of a multiverse. > > Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you > have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no > explanation is possible, you just have to say, "this is the way it is > because that's the way it is." > > Right? > > Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible > answers to the question of "Why is the universe this way instead of > some other way?": > > 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further > explanation possible. > 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that > larger context of "everything". > > What other option is there, do you think? > > > >> So we can take our observations of the world around us and > construct a > >> narrative that is consistent with what we see...a narrative that > >> involves big bangs and electrons. But what caused the big > bang? Why > >> do electrons have the particular properties that they have? If you > >> propose a particular cause for these things, what caused that > cause? > >> > >> How is that better than a narrative that allows for "everything"? > >> They would seem to have equal explanatory power. Which is to say: > >> zero. > [Brent > We have much evidence about the big bang and some > theories as to how it > > may have happened which are testable.] > > So the existence of a big bang event certainly seems consistent with > our observations. But so does the idea of a Boltzmann style > statistical fluctuation from thermal equilibrium. Or the idea that > this is just the dream of the infinitude of relations between numbers. > > We construct narratives that are consistent with our observations, but > these narratives are about our observations, not about what really > exists. You seem to have jumped to some unfounded ontological > conclusions. > > You can talk about big bangs if that helps you think about your > observations, helps you identify patterns in what you experience. > But, that's as far as it can reasonably go, right? > > At the end of the day, we're always right back at where we > started...with our observations...with our subjective conscious > experience. > > > JM: > > I went one little step further and talked about a 'reversed' logic: > Conventional science (as it developed over the millennia) constructed > the 'axioms' as the conditions necessary to make the theoreticals VALID.
This seems like an abuse of terminology. Science doesn't deal in axioms. Axioms are statements accepted for purposes of mathematical inference. They are part of mathematics, not science. Similary, valid refers to a truth preserving sequence of inferences; a mathematical rather than scientific term. Of course science uses mathematics because mathematical description is a way of avoiding self-contradiction. But economists, surveyors, programmers, and just about everybody else also use mathematics. > I did not condone the idea of the Big Bang according to the > conventionals (including the several variants available) and wrote > (my) narrative in a different view (no conventionals). > (For those who have a taste for oddities: Karl Jaspers Forum - TA 62 > (MIK) of 2003. ) > Once we enter the conventional figments of (reductionistic) sciences > (ontology) we can only devise variants WITHIN. I don't understand this. I think science is necessarily reductionist in it's methodology simply because we can't understand everything at once and we can't experiment on everything at once. But science also synthesizes so the reduction is only methodological. Brent > All, where the formulated 'axioms' help. > And that pertains also to 2 + 2 = 4, where it may be 22 as well. Or: > in Bruno's longer version: (2,(0),) + (2, (0),) = 2020 as well. Bruno, > please excuse if I goofed your formula). > Just in another way of axioms-formulation, while as II + II is > always IIII . Axiom or not. > JM > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
