Hi Matt See comments
> Matt said: > I'm not sure what's supposed to be causally independent of physics. This > seems to me to suggest that we cannot give a physical description of > everything, but I'm pretty sure that if you can't give a physical > description of a thing, it doesn't exist. > > David said: > A printed poem is a physical thing, but do physical descriptions give a > full description of its existence? > > Matt: > No. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything about "full description." I > was just saying that if a thing doesn't have a physical description > amongst its many possible descriptions, it's fair enough to say it doesn't > exist. DM: One thing I'd want to make clear here is that possibilities do exist for us and are very important. The possibility of another world war is very real and also is possible and not actual because its manifestation remains un-actualised and unphysical in some sense. And let's hope it stays that way, but as a possibility we are stuck with it for the time being. > > I've noticed something about our relationship: you nip at my heels a lot, > David, but what I'm constantly caused to wonder is whether you have > something you want to bite me about, or whether you just like to nip me. > A "keeping me honest" kind of thing. DM: Keeping you honest and on target is exactly how I see it, generally I am pretty close to your take on things, or seeing if there is a difference between us that I am not getting, > > What do want me to say? I'm a non-reductive physicalist. I think > reductionism was the problem, not physicalism, because I take physicalism > to be "whatever it is science comes up with as a description". I know you > don't like Rorty's philosophy of science, but most of the time you just > pick at things you already know my, and Rorty's, answer to, as if you just > want to hear us say it again. DM: You know my problems with physicalism have reduced somewhat recently after reading a very good version in Nick Maxwell's from Knowledge to Wisdom, where he is very clear about the aspects of human experience that are clearly incomprehensible in terms that we associate with the physical sciences. > > Yes, we are pragmatists who think that science is awesome and poetry is > awesome. We think philosophy as Sellars thought of it, as seeing things, > it the broadest sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest sense of > the term. We'll talk using any particular terms we need, "experience," > "language," "metaphysics," "God," "mind," etc., but sometimes we insist on > some terms over others to avoid problems (just like we avoid swearing when > talking to our mothers). > > Is there something you wanted to talk about? > Just we wanted to see how you'd respond to my points. No problem with the above. Apart from the one thing I've queried. 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/
