|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 15, 2013 12:47:15 GMT 1
Clearly, what it concedes was something deeply mysterious and probably unknowable to Berkeley and yourself. That's because you both made the same mistake in analysing experience and knowledge in the first place. You tied yourselves up with the same self-created knot, I'm afraid.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 15, 2013 12:48:54 GMT 1
Then it is an incomplete definition. Take it up with the OED. Don't forget to mention how you came to be the leading authority on the subject.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 13:06:19 GMT 1
You're missing the point. Whatever mental model I or anyone else use is not the thing itself - it's a model. We are constrained by our mental filters to only see what we can see So? So all we have are our models, nothing more. Neuroscience.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 15, 2013 13:11:21 GMT 1
Something can exist when undefined if it's a configuration of energy in space and time. Like the planet Neptune, say. Because of the nature of spacetime, and how energy in it behaves, it influences other things in the universe, and is influenced by them. It follows an orbit around the Sun because of the distribution of all the other objects around it, for example; and all the other objects follow their orbits in part because of the presence of Neptune. So, if Neptune wasn't there, Uranus for example - and because of the way the universe works, this is so most obviously - would follow a slightly different orbit. Our scientist comes along and does the detective work you've mentioned - hello, he says, given the orbit of Uranus, there must be another planet affecting it - just about there, I reckon. Your theory says it is at this point that Neptune starts to pop into existence. Right? When someone actually looks through a telesope and sees Neptune, it develops its "reality" even more; when our satellites pass it and take a closer look, even more. What you need to now account for is how Bouvard and Le Verrier were ever led to deduce Neptune's future existence in the first place, and why. If Neptune didn't yet exist, what was perturbing the orbit of Uranus? I think it was Neptune, doing its thing. As it had been doing for a very long time: long before there were any people to develop telescopes and discover Uranus and construct mathematical models and deduce its existence, long before it was defined in any way at all, by anyone, or anything. That way, the world makes some sort of sense, you see? You are not saying anything different than before. I know. But you don't seem to appreciate the point, however many times I say it. This is it: the above metaphysic is able to produce rational explanations of our experience; yours can't. See? Look, I've said this before too, but it obviously needs repeating. Leave the language alone! I don't care what you prefer to say - words mean what they say by long-established communal agreement. Make up your own terms if you feel you must, but leave the ones that already exist perfectly happily alone.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 15, 2013 13:17:38 GMT 1
No - there's this something more called reality. That's what we try to model. Often we get it right, to some degree. New York City is in New York State.
Balderdash. How did Galileo "transform" Saturn, again? Answer the bloody question, please.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 13:58:18 GMT 1
Clearly, what it concedes was something deeply mysterious and probably unknowable to Berkeley and yourself. That's because you both made the same mistake in analysing experience and knowledge in the first place. You tied yourselves up with the same self-created knot, I'm afraid. Are you saying we should just give up thinking?
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 13:59:54 GMT 1
Then it is an incomplete definition. Take it up with the OED. Don't forget to mention how you came to be the leading authority on the subject. I don't have to agree with everything I see and hear. That just leads to dogma.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 14:05:06 GMT 1
You are not saying anything different than before. I know. But you don't seem to appreciate the point, however many times I say it. This is it: the above metaphysic is able to produce rational explanations of our experience; yours can't. See? "Explanations of our experience." Thank you, you have seen the light. I have said nothing controversial.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 14:10:42 GMT 1
No - there's this something more called reality. That's what we try to model. Often we get it right, to some degree. New York City is in New York State. Define reality. Once more..... by focussing his attention on it and studying it he brought Saturn into a higher level of reality. Before Galileo and his telescope people would not have been aware of it would they.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 14:22:18 GMT 1
Too sweeping, too definitive, too much crystal-ball gazing. If I ask you: what elements constitute water? - what will you respond? Is the Earth flat, or is it approximately spherical? One that says the Earth is flat? Or not approximately spherical? Why would I say the earth is flat? I accept the scientific explanation given because it is our current model or level of reality that seems to work. Well, it is true insofar as it is true for us but given that we can only ever see things via our observational predispositions we can only settle for this. Would our world be true say, for a spider? Logic.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 15, 2013 14:26:54 GMT 1
Yes, human beings do this but then it does not follow that at the time there were any human beings about to realize what occurred. Who cares? What difference does it make? In this case, we're trying to work out what dinosaur fossils mean. Whether there were human beings about when these fossils were alive is irrelevant. Because it means reality changes depending on who or what is watching.
|
|
|
Post by fascinating on Dec 16, 2013 9:55:27 GMT 1
Reality is what is. We are arguing about the nature of the way things are, what the situation is in reality. You believe that, in reality things are not real until they are made real by some self-aware being becomes aware of them. We believe that you have objects first and beings arise out of them. That is our view of reality.
It couild be that, in reality, I am the only thing in the Universe and I am arguing with the my own imaginary friends. In which case, that would be reality.
You are introducing a new level of reality (not quite reality) called potential. Define that.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 10:18:47 GMT 1
Clearly, what it concedes was something deeply mysterious and probably unknowable to Berkeley and yourself. That's because you both made the same mistake in analysing experience and knowledge in the first place. You tied yourselves up with the same self-created knot, I'm afraid. Are you saying we should just give up thinking? Berkeley's dead, alas, and besides he had the excuse that he had not yet been adequately responded to. You could begin, though. I suggest your first step should be what he would have done: respond to the points put back to you. Try to take on board that very fine minds have been cogitating and arguing about what we're talking about here for thousands of years, that what you're saying is not new but was all said centuries ago, in a far more convincing manner, and has since been thoroughly answered.
|
|
|
Post by mrsonde on Dec 16, 2013 10:25:01 GMT 1
Take it up with the OED. Don't forget to mention how you came to be the leading authority on the subject. I don't have to agree with everything I see and hear. That just leads to dogma. You're claiming that the basic eponymous term used in a whole field of science is not adequately defined. You do so not by a process of analysis and argumentation, but by a diktat produced by a declaration about the way the universe is that you admit you have no evidence for and does not need rational support because it's an a priori axiom. I cannot think of a better definition of dogma, or dogmatic.
|
|
|
Post by abacus9900 on Dec 16, 2013 10:29:50 GMT 1
Reality is what is. We are arguing about the nature of the way things are, what the situation is in reality. You believe that, in reality things are not real until they are made real by some self-aware being becomes aware of them. We believe that you have objects first and beings arise out of them. That is our view of reality. Well, it can only be a belief because how would you ever be able to prove it? Do you not see the point here? Clearly we are not the only thing in the universe because we are aware of other things and people and although you might speculate that they are imaginary they still interact with our perceptions. Things do not exist in a stable, constant way but possess the potential to alter, given their relationship with observers and this includes the things themselves. So, going back to the example of our oven, the oven is an inanimate object and has zero scope for self-awareness which means it will not evolve and, therefore, will not become any more aware of anything than it currently can. A living thing is much more complicated and has a much greater potential to evolve, even within its own lifetime, so in the process of evolving life responds to its environment thereby becoming aware of aspects that were previously hidden. In this manner life and indeed the potential of the environment itself combine to develop "reality" something that has been going on for a very long time. You could say that reality requires the input of the potential of the environment in tandem with the interaction of life, especially complex life. The oven will never know it is an oven by itself and requires the awareness of something more intelligent than itself to define it as an oven.
|
|