Hi Marsha -- > I admit that my adventure into science is at its beginning > and my understanding is fuzzy and shallow, but I am trying. > Even to be told 'Nice try.' is encouraging.
You are much too modest. Most people, no matter how scientifically well-educated, regard Einstein's Relativity just as you have--as the theory that everything is relative. Like many other abstract mathematicians, he was trying to develop an equation to express the reality of everything. I'm not very good at numbers and never even took calculus. The farthest I ever got in math was analytical geometry, and the only reason I got an A in it was that the professor gave open-book exams. All I had to do was look up the right formula and, presto!, I could solve the problem. What I liked about analytical math was that the concept was more important than the numbers. What I like about philosophy is that the concept is more important than the words. (Maybe that says something about my philosophy.) > Before Galileo, Newton, Einstein, I think the major influence that > shaped human experience was the Church. Do I think the ideas, that > these men and their contemporaries brought to Western culture, > shifted the way people experienced their world. Most > definitely! From Newton affects through the 19th Century, the > mechanistic/clockworks world-view was the predominant > experience. Time, space and matter were thought discrete > phenomenon. Since the beginning of the 20th century, it has been > understood that time, space and matter are relational. Time is > relative to the observer. I have _experienced_ this firsthand, or at > least I had an experience that made me think time was relative to my > frame of reference. I have had some strange spacial/matter > experiences too, but I wouldn't even know how to translate them into > language. > > Einstein maybe didn't name his discoveries "relationships", but > because of these ideas, time, space, matter/energy have come to be > understood by the scientific community as relationships rather than > "things". But that it is scientific knowledge it is constantly being > challenged and susceptible to change. That's the general concept, of course, and you have described it quite well. Indeed, existence is a relational system, and everything is relative to the observer. But you are really talking about "interpreted" experience (inductive/deductive concepts) rather than sensory experience per se. And that has changed our "perspective" of reality over the centuries. [Ham, previously]: > 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? [Marsha]: > By "we now know", I mean the prevailing view from the beginning > of the last century 'til now. > > A child is taught how to interpret his experiences, and these > experiences are probably shaped by this indoctrination. Certainly > new ideas can influence experience. Ideas are experienced as much as > the biological senses, maybe more since we are such mental creatures. [Ham, previously]: > Such theories or ideas may change my overall perspective or offer > some insight on reality, but they don't change what I experience. [Marsha]: > And just why have you created a website, and why are you chatting > on this forum? Aren't you hoping to influence others to accept into > their experience the possibility of a creator? Yes, and I'm also interested in understanding how other people think, and why they arrive at the conclusions they do. I've learned that people have an aversion to certain labels, and this affects their thinking. For example, most of the participants here react negatively to words like Creator, Supernatural, Absolute, Divine, Faith, Soul, and Individualism. They are prejudicial about these labels, and if they think a particular concept is tainted by them, they reject it out of hand. While this is narrow-minded thinking to me, it represents the postmodern mindset, and I've adopted a "politically correct" stance and avoided the offending terms. Perhaps that's what you're alluding to in your P.S.: > Are you going to explain this 'metaphysical reality' you > think is being excluded from the MOQ or my posts? > Isn't it a creator? If by "creator" you mean a primary source, obviously I regard the rejection of this concept a form of nihilism. Is it logic or paranoia that leads one to conclude that there is no metaphysical reality, that existence is "just there" and there is no causal explanation for its appearance? I suspect the latter. What do you think, Marsha? How do you justify nihilism? --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/
