BTW, I was wondering how faith popped into the subject line above. I'm
not sure what faith has to do with any of this...?
On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:16 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
Please remember that my participation in the discussion came after
Eric, Miles, and Glen [one 'n'], seemed very dismissive of reality.
That seemed quite strange to me. Our current inability to get our
arms/head/words around something isn't automatically grounds to
dismiss it. Most of what we have figured out about the world started
out as very poorly formulated.
This is the heart of the issue. One of the key doctrines of the "faith
of science", i.e. scientism, is that everything is reducible. I'm (not
alone in) claiming that nothing is ultimately reducible, therefore
explaining systematically and then communicating the true nature of
reality is simply not possible. I believe we can demonstrate that this
is the case in a positive sense, in the same way that we can
demonstrate incompleteness. It doesn't really make sense to say that
we might discover our way out of this.
To me the key aspect goes beyond the inability to conjure a shared or
consistent version of reality, to the understanding that *any*
conception of reality is demonstrably impossible. Here is the mind
twister -- this includes "our" theory of reality. Any basis you can
think of to show that you exist, or indeed that any internal or
external phenomenon exist, is false.
On the other hand, there does seem to be self-awareness of some kind,
so that we cannot say that we don't exist. If we then simply say,
"reality is whatever context this self-awareness occurs in" then that
is self-referential, but I don't have a particular problem with it.
On Sep 17, 2009, at 12:14 AM, russell standish wrote:
You tell me. Just what is the notion? Reality could mean:
1) What kicks back. Johnson's stone, or Doug's hammered thumb
2) Elementary particles
3) Force Fields
...
The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is
virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified.
I'm curious what such a qualification would look like?
-Miles
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 09:55:10PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote:
Just because someone uses a word nonsensically, does that make the
word
nonsense?
I still don't get it. Why are so many people so anxious to dismiss
the word
*reality *-- and with it the corresponding notion?
-- Russ_A
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM, russell standish <[email protected]
>wrote:
On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Russ Abbott wrote:
And it has nothing to do with whether there is a God. I don't
understand
the
connection. Reality is. (That's the end of the previous
sentence.) God,
if
there is any such thing, is by definition outside the realm of
what is.
And
I say that because those who believe in God -- at least those who
are
sophisticated about it -- are very careful to keep God away from
any sort
of
empirical investigation or verification.
-- RussA
The only connection is analogical. There's probably almost as many
conceptions of god as there are people on the planet. Similarly,
there
seems to be about as many conceptions of reality. Consequently, both
terms are really superfluous to doing science.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected]
Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
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--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [email protected]
Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
