Re: Catus mediated ontology

John,

this is probably a nice joke or...
these people never read/understood Kant:
the *ding-an-sich* has nothing to do with
some kind of hidden thing behind the
phenomena it is *just* the phenomena
as *seen* by its *creator* (i.e. not through
the *glasses* of a finite observer). But
in Vienna you may be near the absolute
observer/creator, who knows...
Rafael

Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro, FH Stuttgart, Hochschule der Medien (HdM)
University of Applied Sciences, Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
E-Mail: capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de; rafael@capurro.de
Tel. : +49 - 711 - 25 706 - 182
Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Philosophie, Dillmannstr. 15, 70049
Stuttgart, Germany
Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany. Tel.: +49 - 721 -
98 22 9 -22 (fax: -21)
Homepage in German/English/Spanish/French: www.capurro.de
ICIE (International Center for Information Ethics): http://icie.zkm.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: John Collier <ag659@ncf.ca>
An: Multiple recipients of list FIS <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. September 2002 18:47
Betreff: Catus mediated ontology

Dear FISers:

Naturally, I have made no attempt to verify this, but it
relates to the issue of whether it is possible to get
information about the elusive properties of things in
themselves. And some of us thought that the ding-an-
sich was a philosophical illusion. Apprarently the right
technology can make it observable. Now we only need to
extend the technology to noumenal ends in themselves,
and ethics will become an empirical science.

John

   September 18, 2014

   Austrian Team Splits 'Ding-An-Sich'

   VIENNAóWriting in this month's issue of the journal
   Science, a team of researchers at the Vienna University of
   Technology report a breakthrough discovery in the field of
   noumenal physics. Working in a state-of-the-art lab
   equipped with a specialized chamber capable of
   compressing objects to 1/1,000,000th of their normal size
   through the use of high-energy, self-contained 'gravity
   pits,' the team managed to uncover, and then split, a never
   before isolated entity known as a 'ding-an-sich' or a
   'thing-in-itself.'

   "The importance of this discovery cannot be overstated,"
   notes Uli Werner-Werner, Executive Editor of the Journal
   of Noumenal Physics. "It goes to the heart of one of the basic
   hypotheses of noumenal physics, namely that objects
   consist of something in addition to their constituent,
   perceptible parts; a sort of 'thingness' that makes an
   object what it is."

   Tracing its roots to the work of Prussian-born philosopher
   Immanuel Kant, noumenal physics rejects traditional
   interest in the fundamental building-blocks of matter in
   favor of a theory of 'things' and 'superthings.' "We're
   through with splitting quarks and knitting fuzzy fields,"
   explains Werner-Werner. "That's an Achilles and the hare
   approach that can only take us so far. What we're doing is
   taking a step back and asking bigger questions."

   Postulating the existence of a ding-an-sich behind every
   ordinary object and just out of the reach of human
   understanding grounded in "sense perception and its
   extension through the techniques and technologies of
   traditional experimental science," the Austrian team,
   lead by Professor Hanni Chiang, sought to confirm the
   existence of such 'things,' but faced a seemingly
   insoluble quandary: how do you confirm the existence of
   something that is, by definition, imperceptible, even
   through the use of perfect instruments with infinite
   sensitivity and resolution.

   "It's not a trivial problem," explains Professor Chiang.
   "Our first approach was to compress objects beyond the
   threshold of perceptibility, to just take this chair and
   make it so teeny tiny that all of its perceptible properties
   would be stripped away, just leaving the Ding, but we hit a
   wall with that. We burned through our budget, a good budget,
   something like [$2.3 billion U.S.], and we were still
   likely millions of orders of magnitude from our goal."

   Last June, however, with the addition of Professor Eric
   Lougha of the University of California at Berkeley, the
   team's research took a new direction. "Eric helped us turn
   the problem on its head," recalls Chiang. "Rather than
   making the object imperceptible, we realized we could just
   make ourselves insensate. [Eric] introduced us to a
   special derivative of a small, Central American,
   high-altitude cactus, and, within days, every member of
   the team had seen the ding-an-sich."

   During subsequent tests, the team successfully split the
   ding-an-sich of a laboratory stool, creating two complete
   but distinct 'things' underpinning the stool. "It just
   looks like an ordinary stool," explains Chiang. "But there
   are actually two Dings there. Essentially, it's two stools
   with all of the properties of one stool. It may sound very
   through-the-looking-glass, but there you have it."

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----------
It's the oil, stupid.
Dr John Collier ag659@ncf.ca
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Wed Sep 25 19:20:41 2002