Matt said to David M:
I'm not sure if David mentioned knowing and knowledge in his excursus on
"the possible," but DMB is bringing in "what we can know" to curb "what is
real," such that, because the possible is, by conventional definition what
we don't know because it hasn't happened yet, it isn't real. ... I'm not
saying DMB _is_ regressing, but that is, I think, the point on which it
hangs. I think there is an obvious, commonsensical sense that DMB is right
to defend, the idea that we don't _know_ the future (as, for instance,
against seers), but I think David might be playing around with a different,
broader sense of "know."
dmb says:
My objection to David M's assetions about "the possible" does not rest on
SOM. I'm not saying that "the possible" is not real does not rest on the
fact that it has no material existence. It fits with Radical Empiricism and
the premise that reality is equated with experience. I'm saying that there
is no reality outside of experience and that "the possible" is not real.
Yes, of course a person can actually imagine what might be, what they'd like
to see in the future and all those thoughts are real. We actually experience
such speculations and I'm not denying the reality of the human imagination
or the capacity to plan or predict.
What I'm objecting to is David's way of talking about "the possible" as if
it were some kind of invisible realm or force of nature. Once he described
how one possiblity dies as it collapses into the actuality and then how the
other unactualized possibilities withdrawl, as if the possibilites lived and
died and scurried about, as if "the possible" had an independent existence
outside of experience. And I'm saying that if it is outside of experience
then it is outside of reality. That's what I mean in saying "the possible"
is not real.
I don't know if the following deserves to be called a thought experiment,
but I'll ask you to ponder it. Imagine a certain kind of possibility. Try to
imagine the possibilties that are unimaginable. And be careful not to
actually imagine the unimaginable becasue if you do then it is no longer
unimaginable by virtue of your having imagined it. You see, using dualism
logic, where one can oppose our imaginations to that which is unimaginable
whether or not there ever can actually be any such thing.
See, as Radical Empiricism posits, we can't ignore any kind of experience
nor can we accept the existence of anything outside of experience so that
reality and experience are identical. Nothing more and nothing less. To
count anything outside of experience as part of reality, as James puts it,
is to open a hole through which all metaphysical nonsense enters. I think
"the possible" is an example of this sort of metaphysical nonsense.
And I'd point to the fact that David M is using phenomenology and physics to
support this view and discusses it in terms of inner and outer realities.
These are just a few of many ways in which he reveals that he's using the
assumptions of SOM. I'll remind you that this debate began as an objection
to Terry Eagleton's definition of God; the condition of possibility for all
entities. If we take this condition to be the physical universe then we are
right back into the metaphysics of substance and SOM. If we take this
condition to be an underlying intelligence beyond it we are back into the
same thing with some metaphysical clap-trap thrown in on top. I think its a
bunch of nonsense either way.
Thanks.
dmb
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