On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 10:36:00AM -0000, David Nyman wrote:
>
> I think we will never be able to engage with the issues you describe
> until we realise that what we are faced with is a view from the inside
> of a situation that has no outside. Our characterisation of 'what
> exists' as 'outside' of 'what appears to exist' is the
> sleight-of-intuition that introduces the fatal ontic duality. But there
> is no such duality. We simply *are* this situation, and its
> multifarious forms of differentiation comprise the structures from
> which 'we', our 'experiences' and their 'referents' seamlessly emerge.
> Our challenge as scientists is never to forget that our observations
> and theories all point back at ourselves (there is no other direction).
> If they don't account for 'what appears to exist' this is as great a
> failing as inconsistency with 'what appearance refers to', since these
> attributions are merely distinctions of emphasis in the analysis of any
> given situation.
>
> You could call this the solipsism of the whole, because there is
> nothing else. I know this is as clear as mud, because the language just
> doesn't exist, and I lack the inspiration to introduce it, and my
> hackneyed old terms just get hijacked into familiar and misleading
> connotations. Oh well....
>
> David
>
It makes absolute sense to me, and it is really one of the central
themes of my book "Theory of Nothing". The only points of view are
interior ones, because what is external is just "nothing".
But I know that Colin comes from a different ontological bias, since
we had a long debate last year where he tried to convince there really
was something out there independent of us.
Cheers
--
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A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Thu Sep 21 2006 - 07:37:09 PDT