virus: The saga continues!

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Wed, 17 Sep 1997 12:02:01 -0400 (EDT)


>Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 09:11:13 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Tim Rhodes <proftim@speakeasy.org>
>
>On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Tadeusz Niwinski wrote:
>
>> (1) It is creative to assume that there is more than "reality" in a sense
>> "what we currently know about reality". It is still within A=A paradigm, as
>> when new things are discovered, they become added to our "reality".
>>
>> (2) There is nothing harmful in assuming that there is something more than
>> reality, something we are not capable of knowing as long as you are
>> consistent in the assumption that we are not capable of knowing it. Period.
>> It does not seem to change anything in our lives.
>>
>> (3) The harm comes when you claim we "can't", yet "some of us", "somehow"
>> can. People seem to have a built in mechanism to long for this kind of
>> "unknowable" which can be known. God, Chosen Nation, Dictatorship of the
>> Proletariat, Nirvana, Level-3 -- are just few examples.

(3) Is common practice in science. Scientists say that the universe is
made of 10-Dimensional vibrating superstrings. They can , after meditating
over the equations for decades, reveal this truth to us. But,
unfortunately, we the untrained cannot see it. Is it, therefore, bullshit?
Are you sayng the only real things are those things which any human,
regardless of education, can perceive. Are electrons real?

I know that isn't what you're arguing, Tad. The question I sincerely wish
you could answer is how do we exclude sciences--often requiring decades of
experience and training to understand and often culminating in
over-mystical theories like quantum mechanics, chaos, and
superstrings--from "bad" (3)-type chicanery? It seems to me that we rely
on our institutions to weed out the crap for us. But we recognize that the
institutions of science and government don't act according to their
mandate.

I think Objectivism, and science, provides a decent counter to authority
worship. But only if they don't become an authority, right? Otherwise
aren't they just another expression of MAIDS?

Reed

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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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