From: "psypher" <overload@fastmail.ca> Subject: Re: virus: The Kingdom... To: virus@lucifer.com Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 22:12:41 -0400 (EDT) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
>
> > Actually, "whole" and "part" are categories composed by the
> > observing mind, and are scientifically unacknowledged as such.
>
> ...then, oh noble advocate, please explain the relation between
> atomic/quantum physics, chemistry, genetics, biology, society, and
> memetics within the scientific paradigm.
> ...how do the findings of science - IN FACT - relate to each other if
> I am mistaken.
>
As components within systems; such definitions impose neither
seamless blending nor nonrelational bifuraction (ideal - read
"unreal" - absolutes) a priori.
.
> >> [2] it is possible to attain an objective perspective wrt an
> > observed > process
> >>
> > No, since the 1927 Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum
> > Physics, the goal has been to correlate our perceptions and
> > achieve intersubjective consensus, "objective" and "perspective"
> > being mutually contradictory.
>
> ...how then does science answer questions of causality and
> significance. If science does not answer questions of causality or
> significance how can its findings serve as a source of meaning? If
> the findings of science cannot answer questions of meaning, of what
> use are they in fields other than technology?
>
Statistically and probabilistically, of course. The meaning and
value of the probable (in which experimental results are expressed)
is substantial in lived experience, certainly more so than any
illusory absolutist essentialism you may be either proposing or
constructing as a straw hammer with which to strike science.
It is an unreasonable conceit to criticize physics on the grounds
that it is not axiological (dealing with the good or beautiful as do
ethics and aesthetics); one might as well paint a moustache on the
Mona Lisa because one disdains her for not providing the field
equations (category error alert!). After you finish complaining that
the sciences are not the humanities, will you then criticize the
humanities for being unscientific?
>
> >> [3] the findings of science will eventually [or can, in principle]
> >> encompass the whole of reality
> >>
> > No, science has fully accepted the phenomenological dictum that
> > any object of worldly perception is inexhaustible (open to
> > perception from an unlimited number of distinct perspectives).
>
> ...How then does science arrive at statements of truth?
>
Sciences statements are, as I have stated before (and probably will
have to again, since this seems to be a basic misunderstanding of
yours) probable and statistical. Absolutes are Platonic figments,
not empirical actualities.
>
> >> [4] features of the world which are real [or at least significant]
> >> can be measured and expressed quantitatively.
> >>
> > The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, that one can not
> > simultaneously measure an electron's motion and position beyond
> > a certain degree determined by their product, flies in the face of
> > this assertion.
>
> ...the caseless application of the principles of scientific analysis
> to questions of humyn activity and meaning flies in the face of your
> defense.
>
[4] features of the world which are real [or at least significant]
can be measured and expressed quantitatively.
>
The foregoing is a paste of your EXACT WORDS. READ THEM
AGAIN and show me where my denial that science holds such a
position says anything about your magickal mystickal vision of the
"humyn", or their meaning and activity (as if we have only one of
each!). I am speaking about quantifiable experimental results
concerning features of the world (in this case, electrons), not about
whether or not you should lie to your daughter about the Tooth
Fairy or whether purple is prettier than pink! Face it, Psypher; you
thought you could just blather this ripe tripe and not be called on it,
and are embarassed and defensive that I pointed out that your
knickers are around your ankles.
> >> [5] the scientific endeavour is devoid of bias and assumptions.
> >>
> > This is an ideal to be ceaselessly striven for, but as such, every
> > practicing scientist knows that it is not a reality which inheres.
>
> ...unfortunately it is not an ideal which is expressed as such when
> the findings of science are presented. Practicing scientists may
> acknowledge that they strive to eliminate bias and assumption, but
> rarely acknowledge the biases and assumptions which they have yet to
> eliminate.
>
There can of course be biases of which a scientist is unaware in
any particular study, which is why others replicate studies hoping
to find and eliminate such biases (this tends to further their
careers). Having said this, my question to you is, just exactly how
is our first scientist supposed to acknowledge the existence if any
bias of which he is unaware, as (s)he would most assuredly have
striven to eliminate any bias of which (s)he WAS aware, to prevent
others from trashing his work to advance their careers?
>
> > I would suggest that much science has been done, but, as your
> > flawed and superficial criticisms more than amply illustrate, you
> > have obviously given the subject little deep thought.
>
> ...I would suggest that you should, perhaps, in the spirit of
> science, get down of your [proverbial] high horse.
>
Exactly the naively antiscientific saddle from which I dismounted
you.
>
> ...I'm willing to accede that I should have structured my phrasing
> along the lines of "assumptions commonly found in advocates of
> science as an explanatory vehicle". Point taken.
>
Never attack a straw man when a real one is around to reply.
>
> -psypher
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