Mark,As Bertrand Russell comented on Descartes' cogito, it's even going a bit far to deduce "I think, therefore I am"; all you can say with certainty is "I think, therefore there is a thought". There is a difference in kind between certainty and a reasonable model, as there is a difference in kind between zero and a very small number or infinity and a very large number. Stathis PapaioannouDate: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 01:12:42 +0900From: mpeaty.domain.name.hidden: everything-list.domain.name.hidden: Re: Searles' Fundamental Error
John, I share your apparent
perplexity. No matter which way up I look at the things being discussed
on this list, I always end up back in the same place [and yes it is
always 'here' :-] which is that clearly prior to anything else is the
fact of existence. I have to take this at too levels:
1/ firstly as sloganised by Mr R Descartes: 'I think therefore I am',
although because I am naturally timid I tend more often to say
something like: 'I think therefore I cannot escape the idea that if I
say I don't exist it doesn't seem to sound quite right',
2/ the macroscopic corollary of the subjective microcosm just
mentioned is that it I try to assert that nothing exists that just
seems to be plain wrong, and if I dwell on the situations I find myself
in - beset as I am with ceaseless domestic responsibilities and work
related bureaucratic constraints, the clearest simple intuition about
it all is that the universe exists whether I know it or not.
In short, being anything at all seems to entail being somewhere now,
and even though numbers and mathematical operations seem to be
wonderfully effective at representing many aspects of things going on
in the world, there seems to be no way of knowing if the universe
should be described as ultimately numeric in nature.
I must say too, that I am finding this and other consciousness/deep and
meaningful discussion groups somewhat akin to the astronomer Hubble's
view of the universe; the threads and discourses seem to be expanding
away from me at great speed, so that every time I try to follow and
respond to something, everything seems to have proliferated AND gone
just that little bit further out of reach!
Regards
Mark Peaty CDES
mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
John Mikes wrote:
Bruno:
has anybody ever seen "numbers"? (except for Aunt Milly who dreamed up
the 5 numbers she saw in her dream - for the lottery).
"Where is the universe" - good question, but:
Has anybody ever seen "Other" universes?
Have we learned or developed (advanced) NOTHING since Pl & Ar?
It is amazing what learned savant scientists posted over the past days.
Where are they indeed?
John
On 2/1/07, Bruno
Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
wrote:
Le 29-janv.-07, à 21:33, 1Z a écrit :
>
>
>
> On 24 Jan, 11:42, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> Le 23-janv.-07, à 15:59, 1Z a écrit :
>>
>>
>>
>>> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>>> Also, nobody has proved the existence of a primitive
physical
>>>> universe.
>>
>>> Or of a PlatoniaCall it Platonia, God, Universe, or
Glass-of-Beer,
>>> we don' t care. But
>> we have to bet on a "reality", if we want some progress.
>>
>> Now, here is what I do. For each lobian machine
>
> Where are these machines? Platonia?
Where is the universe?
> I prefer to assume what I can see.
Fair enough. I think we can sum up the main difference between
Platonists and Aristotelians like that:
Aristotelians believe in what they see, measure, etc. But platonists
believe that what they see is the shadow of the shadow of the shadow
... of what could *perhaps* ultimately exists.
The deeper among the simplest argument for platonism, is the dream
argument. Indeed, dreaming can help us to take some distance with the
idea that seeing justifies beliefs. Put in another way, I believe in
what I understand, and I am agnostic (and thus open minded) about
everything else.
Now to be sure, I am not convinced that someone has ever "seen"
*primary matter*.
Bruno
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Received on Sat Feb 03 2007 - 18:55:50 PST