me: >> The realist view is that the >> outside world exists independent of our perception of it.
ravi quotes Quine: >> _Realism_, as the word is used in connection with the mediaeval controversy >> over universals, is the Platonic doctrine that universals or abstract >> entities have being independently of the mind; the mind may discover them >> but cannot create them.<< that's his definition. There are other conceptions. Definitions are not based on abstract universal forms. Doyle Saylor wrote: > Independent of our perceptions? Our perceptions are of the same material as > the rest. They are interconnected. That is the realist stance. There is > no independence or autonomy of perception. An error is not autonomous, nor > is perception anything but material... We disagree: I don't think that thinking (including perception) is "material" as much as it is a function of material (the cognitive and perceptual infrastructure). However, you are right that perception is an object of study even though it's "inside" the individual. What you're missing is the point of view. If a scientist (or even an economist) is investigating the world, the world must be treated as existing externally. It's true, however, that there is a more objective point of view, i.e., looking at the scientist's brain, etc., we may find that there are inherent biases in perception. If so, these should be taken into account. Shane writes: >Jim's thought about Ptolemaic vs. Aristarchian models of the solar system misses the point entirely. There never was a dispute about the real organization of the solar system... What made geocentrism the dominant Hellenistic notion was a combination of three factors--(1) circular motion was much easier to handle mathematically than elliptical; (2) geocentrism supports anthropocentric ideology much better than heliocentric ... and, in fact crucially important, (3) The geocentric model is precisely that of *astrology*. It is, as they say, "no accident at all" that Claudius Ptolemy, the eponym of geocentric astronomy, is the author of the ... basic texbook of astrology. Thus Jim is indeed correct that "Ptolemaic astronomic models...served the purposes that people used them for well enough." Those purposes were *astrological*, not scientific. < Though it was mostly a matter of astrology, star-gazers also helped predict seasonal changes and the like. > Astrologers needed reliable ephemerides describing with mathematical > precision the observed positions of the "stars." Astronomy, the handmaid of > astrology, provided under the clear night skies of Mesopotamia the centuries > of meticulous observation and record keeping that Ptolemy needed to construct > his ephemerides. Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler arrived on the historical > scene precisely when the "Age of Discovery" made the need for an > astronomically accurate navigational technology imperative, and so astronomy > emerged as an independent science, separate from and ultimately hostile to > astrology.< right. >The statement that "In science, no general framework of understanding can or >should be rejected -- no matter how numerous the anomalies are -- if there's >not an alternative framework to replace it" fails for two reasons. Any >general framework of understanding is inherently ideological ... and should >be rejected whenever the accumulating anomalies and the recondite mathematical >conjectures needed to accomodate them make them aesthetically repugnant and >unable in practise to generate empirically confirmable and confirmed (or, for >Popperians, refutable and unrefuted) predictions. < I agree about the ideological component, but how is (for example) Einsteinian physics "ideological." Further, since much of the universe is ugly (present company excepted, of course), I reject the role of aesthetics. It's true that a theory is very weak if it's based on a lot of iffy assumptions. However, if a premise is recondite -- i.e., difficult to penetrate, incomprehensible to one with only ordinary understanding or knowledge -- that is not a problem. Some things are hard to understand. > Secondly, there are always unexplored alternative frameworks available. > Specifically, in regard to astrophysics, there is plasma cosmology ... The > universe, it seems, can be viewed as an electrical phenomenon on the grandest > scale, all of whose features correspond to phenomena observable in the > laboratory on the smallest scale (plasma phenomena being perfectly scalable > over all observed ranges).< if "there are always unexplored alternative frameworks available," then it hardly goes against my point. So I don't see how my contribution "misses the point entirely." I'd like to know more about "plasma cosmology." Has it been tested empirically? why is it that it's not taught in physics books? That is, this restates my point: it doesn't do any good to punch holes in "orthodox" physics unless one argues that one's "unorthodox" brand of physics is superior. -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
