Re: ROADMAP (well, not yet really...

From: David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:36:24 -0000

Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:

> The words 'direct probing' assume that indeed we are at some point
> "directly probing". If you can justify any account that we directly probe
> (whatever that means!) anything I'd like to see it!

I see what you mean. Francis Bacon described our enterprise as to 'vex
Nature', an expression that has always rather tickled me, and I simply
meant that there comes a point at which Nature resists even the notion
of being vexed, and we're reduced to talk of something skulking 'behind
the scenes'. It was to this that Wittgenstein addressed his notorious
admonishment. So I'm (or rather grandma is) simply asking Bruno
whether, rather than invoking 'Number', or whatever, as lurking in this
shadowy region, it makes any real difference were we to re-cast comp in
something more like the form of words suggested - i.e as derived from
the (1st person) observables - 'nuff said.

> Can you see how riddled with historical baggage our thinking is, how
> biased our language is? This crazy situation has been going on for 2500
> years. enough already!

Yes, and I despair (almost) of remedying this, even if I knew how. My
own attempts at linguistic 'clarity' seemed destined only to muddy the
waters further, especially as I'm really trying to translate from
personal modes that are often more visual/ kinaesthetic than verbal,
gestalt than analytic.

That said, I rather like your 'adverbial' mode, which I think has also
cropped up in other contexts (didn't Whitehead attempt something of the
sort with his process view?) Nominalisation/ reification creates
conceptual confusions, embedded assumptions spawn others, as in all
language to do with time, which is already loaded with the assumption
of experiential dynamism, and hence can do nothing to help explain it.

My own hastily contrived usages were an attempt to expose the implicit
(and hence generally conceptually invisible) holding of the world 'at
arm's length' by the objectifying effect of 3rd person language, which
simultaneusly relegates 1st-person to a subsidiary role, to the extent
that some even feel impelled to deny its existence, or resort to
bizarre ontolgies in an attempt to 'reintroduce' it. Where McGinn and
Chomsky hold that it is the analytic/ synthetic modes of language that
puts 1st person beyond our ability to conceptualise, I feel that the
unacknowledged consensual projection of an 'objective model' as
'reality' has more to do with it.

My belief has been that restoring 1st person to some sort of centrality
would be part of the antidote, and I haven't yet (quite) lost hope on
this score. I look forward to the fruits of your own efforts in this
regard.

David

> "David Nyman" <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>:
> >
> > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> >> If grandmother asks for recalling the main difference between Plato and
> Aristotle's theories of matter, I would just say that in Plato, the
> visible (observable, measurable) realm is taken as appearances or
> shadows related to a deeper unknown reality.
>
> BTW Plato followed Heraclitus, who was already onto this.
>
> Surely Plato's view more astute model to assemble an understanding of the
> natural world than the assumption of Aristotlian/atomism thinking... that
> the universe is made of chunky bits of stuff that literally are the
> appearances we get and our descriptions of it....furthemore
>
> The arisotlian view is clearly anatomically untenable anyway! If the
> universe was literally made of appearances then when we opened up a brain
> we would see them. We do not. What we see is the brain in the act of
> delivering appearances. No 'appearance' of a brain is in any direct
> relation to the appearances it delivers to us in the 1st person. Ergo the
> structure and the appearances are not the same thing or at least are
> validly explored on that basis.
>
> This is empirical proof that at least in this small piece of thought
> Plato's position was correct and Aristotle is just plain wrong. And Kant
> too. The noumenon is most definitely real and scientifically
> tractible.(see below)
>
> The practical upshot of this is that the universe does not, for example,
> have atoms in it. It is made of some underlying structure behaving
> "atomly" within our appearances. It is only us that insist on making it a
> 'thing'. That structure also behaves 'neutrino-ly' outside the scope of
> our direct perceptions (qualia). The appearances (qualia) are likewise
> delivered as behaviour of the very same structure. Plato's position
> unifies matter and qualia as different behaviours of the same underlying
> structure. So simple and obvious and practical and fits the evidence.
>
> >
> > A question from grandma:
> >
> > Since this deeper, unknown reality must forever be inaccessible to our
> direct probing, I agree when you suggest that this may better be thought
> of as theology, or at least metaphysics.
>
> Juicy stuff here:
>
> "Since this deeper, unknown reality must forever be inaccessible to our
> direct probing"
>
> The words 'direct probing' assume that indeed we are at some point
> "directly probing". If you can justify any account that we directly probe
> (whatever that means!) anything I'd like to see it! I would hold that the
> 'apprearances' we have and the 'underlying structure' are on an _equal_
> epistemological footing in that
>
> a) Depictions of regularity in appearances
> b) Depictions of structure of a putative underlying natural world
>
> both have equal access to qualia as evidence. It is the underlying
> structure that delivers qualia into the brain. The two descriptive realms:
> appearances and structure are on an equal footing and qualia unifies them
> into a consistent set. The 'evidence', qualia, is evidence for BOTH
> domains. Whatever the structure is, it must simultaneously a) deliver
> qualia and all the rest of the structure in the universe and b) deliver
> the contents of qualia (appearances) that result in our correlations of
> appearances that we think of as empirical laws.
>
> Therefore we have not one but 2 scientifically accessible realms of
> scientific description of the natural world:
>
> 1) Statistics that are correlation of appearances
> 2) Statistics that are depictions of structure
>
> Qualia are produced by 1) and enable 2) and tie both descriptions
> intimately together as a consistent set. Currently we call 1) science and
> slag off at 2) as 'mere metaphysics' or theology. This is just soooo
> wrong! Indeed at least in a linguistic sense 2) is physics and 1) is
> meta-physics (about it)! :-)
>
> So...
>
> "Since this deeper, unknown reality must forever be inaccessible to our
> direct probing"
>
> ...is quite correct, but that does not stop us doing valid science on the
> structure! Put another way this limitation in access does not justify
> calling attempts to formulate theories of the structure as non-science.
>
> Can you see how riddled with historical baggage our thinking is, how
> biased our language is? This crazy situation has been going on for 2500
> years. enough already!
>
> cheers
> colin hales


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Received on Sat Aug 12 2006 - 10:38:26 PDT

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