Platt and Glenn,
sorry to horn in on your conversation;
Glenn, I noticed a statement of yours to the effect of (hang on,I'll find
it):
GLENN:
Good science is our only hope for gaining meaningful
knowledge-knowledge we are reasonably sure is right. And I
stand firm on that.
What is most beautiful is what is most real. And I stand firm on
that.
GLENN:
The belief that the big bang was an accident is not a scientific
belief. There is no scientific evidence that suggests it was an
accident. There is no evidence to suggest any cause.
By definition uncaused manifestations are either accidents or
miracles. The confidence scientists have in the creative power of
chance is an article of faith, something they assert despite the
absence of any reasonable proof.
..................It's this last bit I'm wrestling with. : "By definition
uncaused manifestations are either accidents or miracles."
there's something about our concepts of causality here which is deeply
suspect. The statement presumes that we already have in place an adequate
explanitory framework, sufficiently well fleshed out that all that is left
is dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's. But is that really regarded as
so? - are there really no expectations of causal mechanisms which are as yet
totally unhinted at, yet which may well conform to 'science' as we know it?
In other words, to make such a statement, ( in my opinion) you would have to
be saying someting like " we already know most everything, it's just the
details that have to be worked out". Now, this does sound a bit like the
state-of-play of 'Physics' prior to Einstein (at al).
I'm sorry to nit-pick, but it does seem that your position actually rests on
this assupmtion, yet it is one which seems logically insupportable. You've
used the term 'by definition", yet there is no consensus on the notion of
definition which can (yet) withstand the onslaught of logical dissection;
definitions seem to end up depending on some agreed-upon viewpoint, and
hence are the product of votes, rather than referring to someintrinsic
'absolute' quality. Likewise, "accidents" and "miracles" may well be
effectively synymous - it's a matter of perspective rather than rigid,
'absolute', definitions.
Consequently, and wielding Ockham's razor rather sweepingly, the whole
paragraph seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts (as with so many
'common-sense' observations), and is unusable in logical debate. Now, I
don't wish to advocate inadmissible - ness, but do feel that the statement
needs to be more rigorously constructed, to be valuable.
Sorry to interrupt the flow of conversation, but I do feel this goes to the
whole heart of the "science / not science" dialogue. It's about what we
mean by "knowing"; in turn this is related to another (ongoing) thread about
"aboluteness" (of the 'known').Which in turn relates to your ".most real"
..... as against "real, but not actually AS real as the MOST real?" - I'm
not taking the piss here, - there really is something genuine about the
feeling that we might find some things more 'real' than others. But I'm not
sure I could ever make the case that this could amount to a scientific
observation..... but no less real for all that!
As David (Lind) would say: "it's all good"
... but some is more good than other!
cheers
ppl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platt Holden" <pholden5@earthlink.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: 06 October 2000 23:47
Subject: Re: MD Many Truths-Many Worlds
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