[Ian] This is what I refer to as "there's a hole in my metaphysics". Every metaphysics has one - a starting point, something at least ineffable at it's boundary / foundation / core.
"Assumption" is a loaded pejorative word in rhetorical exchanges, and Platt is good at those ;-) But for those discussing the recent edition of in our time - interesting to note that even Newton's famous "laws" are strictly axioms stated without evidence or proof of any kind. Galilleo the builder without foundations, etc. Kepler too. A lot of this is quoted behind Nick Maxwell's drive to get even science to recognise that its foundations are much more flimsy than its empricist, objectivist obsession would suggest. [Krimel] This hole has a long history; we find it in a contemporary of Jesus', Agrippa, who listed five grounds for doubt. Assumption - The truth asserted is merely an hypothesis. Godel, proved that any closed system of reason required statements that could not be proven within the system. Challenges empiricism arising from relativity, thermodynamic and quantum mechanics are widely known. What an assumption does is draw a line in the sand of infinite regression. If "assumption" is pejorative, synonyms like axiom, premises, suppositions may be less so. Assumptions should offer some reward for accepting them and the fewer you have to make the better. An assumption is essentially suspension of disbelief. It says that beyond this point the possibility of error is so remote or irrelevant that we can and should ignore it. An assumption rounds off infinity. Using a set of assumptions, we construct frameworks of thought. We are able to come to belief by suspending disbelief. If the assumptions themselves are challenged the whole structure is at risk. We will cling to the assumption or not, depending on how much we have invested in the over all structure. The Copernican Revolution has been seen as an archetypal case of the triumph of one scientific view over another. Consider what Copernicus asks of us. Imagine a chemistry professor, exiled to die on a rock in the sun. In the three of four days left to him he will see the sun rise in the east and set in the west. This ball of light moves across the arc of heaven; while he and all around him are flat and still. Copernicus asked people abandon the first person, to step out into space and at some remove, imagine the sun stationary with the earth moving. This was a big shift in assumptions. It violated the common sense and asked common folk to reinterpret their sense data. This common sense is an illusion. It is Maya. This radical shift in perspective is now the common sense view. It was resisted and for good reason, it too is Maya. Since the time of Newton we have become much better at manipulating and being manipulated by illusion. Many assumptions do no rock our worlds. They are not foundational and we may even pay to have our point of view and our illusions of reality altered. Suspension of disbelief and accepting questionable assumptions has become routine. In art we may willfully suspend disbelief in order to actively participate as a spectator. We may assume the stance the artist asks us to take. We may even expect the artist to guide and manipulate our point of view. Slavoj Zizek shows how cinema does this in "The Pervert s Guide to Cinema" (Thanks, DM!) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3226788276373981782&q=zizek+pervert&; total=22&start=0&num=50&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 He shows how sets of suppositions or points of view are used by the Marx Bros., Hitchcock, Kubrick, David Lynch and others. He says, for example, what disturbs us about Psycho, is that it forces us to see the world as Norman Bates sees it. We see a vision on one of our possible selves and it makes us uncomfortable. We are _of_ afraid of him. We are afraid of being him. People in the modern world are accustomed to this kind of virtually directed manipulation. We shift point of view so frequently it is no long clear to us how to differentiate reality from illusion. Nor is it clear that such a distinction is possible or that it matters. >From the foundation of physics and logic to art and film assumptions are made and we accept their consequences. Science leads us into a world that contains physical objects that defy our senses and reason, quarks, singularities, condensates. Art asks us to reconsider what we think we know and to see differently. It asks for no long term commitment to its assumptions. Its value is in the purity of the vision it offers not the truth of its assumptions. Science and religion ask for a different kind of commitment. They claim that the purity of their visions is a direct consequence of their assumptions. It is not the making of assumptions that is at issue it is the level of our commitment to them. 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/
