Dear Marsha -- (I should have accepted your invitation to dance.)
On 8/20 I wrote: > Certainly I agree that human understanding is limited. I've been saying > this all along. That's why we experience reality in finite increments > called time. You respond by saying: > I know you wrote we _experience_ reality in finite increments of > time, but in fact from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity don't > we now know that space, time, matter, and energy are names for > relationships. So maybe our way of experiencing the world is still > being influenced by the old Newtonian perspective. And maybe in the > future our experience will catch up with the new relativity > point-of-view?. All static patterns of value, by the way. Nice try, Marsha. But I don't think Einstein was naming "relationships". I'm not a physicist, but Einstein's Theories of Relativity (there's a "special" and a "general" theory) defines mass, motion and energy as the constituents of physical reality, and states that these elements are relational within a given "space/time frame". The Special Theory makes an exception for the speed of light as relative, stating that it is constant, regardless the observer's motion. It also formulates the equivalence of mass and energy in the E = mc^2 equation. The general theory is based on the proposition that there is no physical difference between gravitational force and the force produced by acceleration. But I find your phrase "we now know" curious in this context. Does it mean that because a man named Einstein came up with a new theory we are all supposed to experience reality differently than before? I don't know about you, but I don't experience "by the book" but by the same process I experienced as a child. Nor does the fact that a philosopher has written two books about Quality change the way I experience the world. Such theories or ideas may change my overall perspective or offer some insight on reality, but they don't change what I experience. Do we not all still experience physical reality as a sequence of events in time? Do we not measure this sequence in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years? And isn't this because we are incapable of experiencing the whole of reality -- past, present, and future -- due to the limitations of our sensory awareness? That's all I was trying to say, while agreeing with you that human understanding is limited. But to suggest that a theory by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, or anybody else can influence the way humans experience the world is a stretch of credibility. --Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
