On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 9:33 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> But you're looking at our theories as reality. > If you look at them as models we invent to explain the world then it's > not so mystical and it's easy to understand that not only does the flower > of knowledge open, it also gets discarded and replaced. > I like "not so mystical", consequently a mystic-o-meter, a type of scanner, that quantifies mysticism in some object or thought, should be in our future... where some security/authority figures input objects in some space station checkpoints by scanning them. The scanner would also be sensitive to information systems, the content of reading material, spoken word, etc. Security guy: "First up we got this yellow, curved thing today" and the scanner blurts out "Designation: Banana, edible, fruit, legal for non-commercial use bellow 10kg, mystical only to giant apes, cleared for homo erectus, as only exceeding recommended mystical allowance when inner fruit is split in combination with sub zero dairy products... are there any chilled dairy products in scanning range? Particularly ones labeled vanilla or chocolate?". The officers scan for ice cream, but before they can find the suspicious bag, Brent just waves his hand: "I'm a true engineer, you morons! I don't believe in mystical bullshit..." The officer shrugs: "Yeah, but that's the kind of thing everybody we check says, only to have a conversation with a patch of algae the moment we turn around..." Brent replies: "But you are mistaking a legal theory for reality!" Of course, the scanner with that input goes ballistic at this moment, while Brent without hesitation launches some hidden jet pack transformer contraption, made from "real classical mechanics and sustainably physical fuel" and blasts himself into quantum size, simultaneously zipping in and out of existence. He shakes his head while he hears the security guy say something the security guy doesn't say: "These sneaky realist mystics... they just don't get it... the R word always gives them away." Brent re-materializes at normal scale through the power of the recycled flower of knowledge, which he always properly discards and replaces by another one, completely different... and walks through the checkpoint without using the R word that way. "why call it the flower of knowledge if you're going to discard and replace the thing anyway? Flower of knowledge is as ridiculous as any other ideal... why bother?" PGC asked him at some point. "Because, I just say No." PGC's brain explodes at that point for obvious reasons and... surprise: he just simply dies. No infinite conversations with snails, discourse with birds, winds, water, 99 models both conceptual and physical, and the rest of the mystical nonsense that he shleps through life in face of what can't be justified, e.g. taxes. Of course there are ways to interpret taxes creatively; which people get caught for all the time. Creativity is only recognized as long as people can believe in and be convinced by the model. Then we thrash the sacred cow to allow at best some counterexample to current fetishes, to be able to spout historically: "See? Back then people were so ignorant, they thought the world was flat!" The notion that anybody can score points on any level without a bit of luck in face of growing awareness of ignorance is dubious. Still doesn't mean relativism in terms of not even trying, for how would we know? PGC On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 12:16 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > On 18 August 2014 06:41, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 8/16/2014 11:02 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> Indeed. This is generally my objection to theories that *require* >>> conscious observers (and also my objection to people who say 1+1=2 is a >>> human invention, by the way, since the laws of physics, which appear to be >>> based on arithmetic, still worked fine without any conscious beings to >>> "invent" them). >>> >> But that's because we invented them to work that way. We invented >> language to describe things as we seen them and then we make inferences >> from it. >> > > Yes, note the "As we see them" in the above sentence. If we are describing > things as we see them, we aren't inventing them. We already had an argument > about your weird use of "invent" to mean "discover" - we don't invent the > world that is being described, we only invent the particular form of the > description, like using the symbol "1". If you're going to use invent and > discover interchangeably like this, fine, just remind me not to bother > discussing it with you in future. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
