Friends,
it is completely irrelevant whether there exists an "outside" or not. We cannot decide this
question, being inside our skulls, encapsulated.
What we can discuss, what kind of picture we make of this outside, the properties of which we cannot
really experience, being slaves of our sensory organs and of our brains prestructured properties.
So far, we all are in agreement (within this FIS discussion, in literature, among philosophers and
among common-sense people).
Now comes the clever thought:
It is not relevant how the REALITY we believe to be, what we can look at is our PICTURE OF the
reality. And here one may conclude that a PICTURE of reality is better suited to picture the unknown
with if it allows for some properties of the unknown to be pictured.
E.g.:
we see that Newton has PREDICTED places,
that the concept of inertia is basically a concept of PREDICTIONS,
that the layers of electron start off at 2i**2,
that genetic info transfer translates from a sequence to a commutative assembly and back,
that genetic info transfer uses 3*4 vs. 64 logical units,
and so forth, each of these properties of the unknown needing a way (method) to be PICTURED.
Whether the picture will in fact, indeed, really picture Nature or not we cannot decide, because we
do not know how Nature in fact, indeed, really is. What we can say is that if we make the picture to
be accomodating to the idea of PREDICTIONS, we shall be able to explain more. Maybe this explanation
will be overturned later by an even better explanation, but today we have to choose between
explanational systems where:
heretofore was:
objects incorporate forces, forces emanate from objects,
is now:
no forces inhabit any dead objects, objects have no forces,
but their properties can be PREDICTED.
Heretofore was:
in a logical-mathematical picture, no contradictions and no inexactitudes exist, the two sides of an
"=" are really equal;
is now:
the two sides of an "=" are not quite equal, there is a slight, statistical inequality (to
the tune of about 10E-95%), in our counting system we pretend an exactitude which we do not have.
Our wishes have influenced our thinking. We wish that we can define something that is apart to be in
one piece. We are too clever by half by DEFINING something instead of counting it.
Like dumb people who are too vain to recognise and admit their error many steps back (examples from
history, business, game theory, diplomacy, psychology, etc. abound), the scientific community has
also its own "inertia" (its behaviour is predictably unchanging) by insisting that it has
been defined like this.
My proposal (not the first and not the last time) is that we start being subjective and not pretend
we have complete understanding of how we build our picture of the world. Our wish to congratulate
ourselves that we have found a way to picture Nature consistently and easily understandably appears
to be more rewarding than our wish to build a more complicated picture. The inner coherence is our
own urge, not a property of Nature.
So, let me repeat:
by using a too much simplified measuring-counting system, we keep using the ideas about Nature that
have been evolved by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Greek and Arab, some 3-5 thousand years
ago. They lived in an experienced chaos and have built a measuring system with rigid rules, units,
results, grids.
We have much less anxiety about Nature, so we may allow a picture of Nature which is more
contradictory and complicated by its rules, units, results, grids, buit thereby allows recognising
Nature (or at leasrt our picture of it) as consistent and whole.
If we introduce two kinds of measurements, one based on similarity, rigid neighbourhoods and unique
results to operations, the other based on dissimilarity, varied neighbourhoods and most probable
resulty, and use the two systems in tandem, then we can make PREDICTIONS, and this is what we do as
we try to PREDICT Nature's next state, movement, behaviour.
We can do it, specifically in this chat room. There is sufficient intelligence in this room. Let us
hope there is alsso sufficient courage and common sense, too.
All the best:
Karl
> Von: "Rafael Capurro" <capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de>
> Datum: 2006/07/01 Sa PM 10:06:22 CEST
> An: <fis@listas.unizar.es>, "John Collier"
<collierj@ukzn.ac.za>
> Betreff: Re: [Fis] Realism
>
> Folks,
>
> very briefly to (hopefully) clarify: Heidegger remarked once that the
> "scandal of philosophy" (Kant) regarding our lacking of proofs
for the
> existence of the "outside world" is in fact the scandal that we
still are in
> search of such proofs. So, no question, for me about this. Sorry for
being
> misunderstood.
>
> We are "already" in the world. Every question about the
existence or not of
> something "out there" is, as I already said, a petitio
principii. My remark
> concerning a "declaration of faith" does not concerns therefore
the
> existence of "beigns out there" (or "outside my
mind") BUT the question of
> what we mean when we start discussing what it means "to be" or
what we mean
> when we say, for instance, there is "just matter" or
"just..." This
> statements presuppose that we have a pre-understanding of Being (NOT: of
the
> existence of beings).
>
> I know, this is a philosophic discussion, and may not be interesting for
> everybody in this list.
>
> kind regards
>
> Rafael
>
>
> Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro
> Hochschule der Medien (HdM) - Stuttgart Media University, Wolframstr. 32,
> 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
> Private: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
> E-Mail: rafael@capurro.de; capurro@hdm-stuttgart.de
> Voice Stuttgart: + 49 - 711 - 25706 - 182
> Voice private: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
> Homepage: www.capurro.de
> Homepage ICIE: http://icie.zkm.de
> Homepage IRIE: http://www.i-r-i-e.net
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Collier" <collierj@ukzn.ac.za>
> To: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2006 7:08 PM
> Subject: [Fis] Realism
>
>
> > Dear fisers,
> >
> > I have been grading almost full time the last week, so I did not get
a
> > chance to respond to Arne, or comment on the other interesting
recent
> > posts on this topic. I will just make a short realist statement,
though.
> > It is based on the Realism of C.S. Peirce. He distinguished between
> > imaginary doubt and real doubt. Real doubt is that which gives us
evidence
> > that appears to be contrary to our beliefs. Imaginary doubt is based
on
> > possbilities that we have no evidence for, but we believe are at
least
> > possible. The problem with imaginary doubt is that it is based on
abstract
> > reasoning, void of ties to evidence by and large, and it is thus
very
> > fallible.
> >
> > Here is what I think:
> >
> > I just don't think that we can base epistemology on some consensual
> > agreement about there being an external world, or about some world
we have
> > socially constructed. I think that we can know the world in terms of
its
> > features, and that we know many features of the world. I think that
the
> > world is an information structure along the lines of a distributed
system
> > in the line of Barwise and Seligman. The logic of such systems is
that we
> > cannot infer backwards to the source in general. We need a special
sort of
> > channel to do that. However, science and evolution tend to make such
> > channels. Obviously I would have to get into more detail. Of course
this
> > all assumes there is something "out there". My best
evidence for that is
> > that there are things I do not create in my mind. Perhaps they come
from
> > other parts of my mind, but that is still "out there"
relative to my
> > consciousness. Basically, I think that the evidence that there is
> > something "out there" is very strong, and the evidence
that there is not
> > is negligible. That we can't know the "out there" is based
on a huge
> > string of inference about the possibility of error in special cases
> > extended to the possibility for all cases. I reject the last part of
the
> > argument. I don't think it is possible that everything we believe
about
> > the external world is false. My argument again is fairly simple:
whatever
> > the structure of the information that we experience, that which we
don't
> > consciously cause comes from "out there", so we know
"out there" has at
> > least that much structure. And from there we bootstrap. Part of what
we
> > bootstrap to is a consensual world (though I am constantly surprised
that
> > my neighbours see so little of what I see, so I am not sure how much
is
> > consensual -- I find myself often faking that the world is more like
what
> > people around me seem to think it is like -- this dishonesty bugs
me, but
> > it saves fights over things like Zulus are much more like
Scots-Canadians
> > than they are different from each other -- if I have a Zulu student
who
> > wants to think that Zulus are fundamentally different, then I
usually let
> > it go.)
> >
> > I see no need of any consensual proof of such an abstract entity as
a
> > consensually agreed on world in order to have knowledge of an
external
> > world, nor do I see that the proof would be very convincing compared
to
> > direct experience of things I do not cause myself, and which can
surprise
> > me. I think that the evidence for a consensual world must be weaker
than
> > the evidence for a world beyond our conscious experience, and any
argument
> > in favour of doubting that world must have even weaker evidence.
Lacking
> > such evidence, I doubt when I am surprised, and have a reason to
doubt.
> > Otherwise, I think both sceptical arguments and anti-realist
arguments are
> > all very fallible abstract thinking, which I don't much trust.
> >
> > That said, I think that the evidence is that we construct our
> > understanding of the world out of materials from both our mind and
the
> > world, so I fall into the category that is usually called
constructive
> > realist.
> >
> > Regards,
> > John
> >
> > ----------
> > Professor John Collier
> > collierj@ukzn.ac.za
> > Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041
South
> > Africa
> > T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> > http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
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Received on Mon Jul 3 09:28:41 2006
