Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> Brent Meeker writes:
>
>
>>>Saying that there is a material substrate which has certain properties is just a working
>>>assumption to facilitate thinking about the real world. It may turn out that if we dig into
>>>quarks very deeply there is nothing "substantial" there at all, but solid matter will still be
>>>solid matter, because it is defined by its properties, not by some mysterious raw physical
>>>substrate.
>>
>>But I don't think we ever have anything but "working assumptions"; so we might as
>>well call our best ones "real"; while keeping in mind we may have to change them.
>
>
> That's just what I meant. If you say, this is *not* just a working assumption, there is some
> definite, basic substance called reality over and above what we can observe, that is a
> metaphysical statement which can only be based on something akin to religious faith.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
I put "working assumption" in scare quotes because I think the fact that we can
create models of the world that are successful over a wide domain of phenomena is
evidence for an underlying reality. It's not conclusive evidence, but reality is
more than just an assumption.
Brent Meeker
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Sun Aug 27 2006 - 15:43:12 PDT