All, I have stayed out of this so far because it just seems so NUTTY. (Look who's talking! When Thompson think's you're nutty you have a real problem.).
But it seems to me that every attack on realism I ever read presumes a reality, including those I have been reading here. As Holt points out, you have to start somewhere and the simplest least contorted beginning is to assume realism. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: russell standish <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Date: 9/17/2009 9:14:29 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith and Science (was comm.) > > 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 > 4) A universal dovetailer (Schmidhuber's Great Programmer) > 5) Platonia of mathematical forms > 6) Kant's noumenon > 7) Standish's Nothing (aka Library of Babel) > 8) Real in the sense I am real (RITSIAR) > ... > > > and that's just what I pulled out of my head in a brief moment. The > ... indicates that there are many, many, more subtle variants. Most of > these versions of reality are incompatible with each other. > > The truth is that the word reality has been debased so much it is > virtually meaningless, unless very carefully qualified. > > 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 > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ============================================================ > > 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 > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
