Elephant and all Gravitons,
ELEPHANT:
> But do all roads lead to the truth?
MARCO:
> All roads are true.
ELEPHANT:
> Hm. Long pause before I replied to that one. Can't think of
> anything very much to say to that. Except maybe "really?".
MARCO:
Maybe I had to write "All roads are real". I don't know if it's very
different to your English ears. In Italian, I think we'd translate both
"true" and "real" with the term "vero".
Anyway, let's take for example the interesting exchange you had with Dan
Dunn about gravitation.
DAN:
> The force of gravity does not and has not existed for
> nearly a century, but apples continue to fall. Just as
> it is possible to bring these things (like the force of
> gravity) into existence, it is possible to obliterate them.
> According the The General Theory of Relativity,
> gravitation occurs because time is
> slower in the vicinity of any massive body.
ELEPHANT:
> .... we maybe to take this idea as definitional of
> the relative "speed of time" and of "massive bodies" in
> just the same way that Newton's laws
> are definitional of force and mass?
DAN:
> Exactly. If you can determine why time is slower within
> a gravitational field, you will either be hailed as the greatest
> genius since Einstein himself, or condemned
> as a crackpot (and hailed as a genius in the future).
MARCO:
>From these words I realize that:
1) The "General Theory of Relativity" has been invented about 100 years
ago. Just like "Newton's Law of Gravity", it's an intellectual pattern
created to
explain a Natural Phenomenon. Dan calls this phenomenon "Gravitation".
The GTR includes and replaces the NLG as it is more inclusive.
2) Of course, even the NLG is an invention. It had replaced a
preexisting law (something like "Solid things fall down to the ground",
let's call it the Law of Falling Solids). NLG includes and replaces the
LFS as it is more inclusive (it explains why the Planets don't fall to
Earth).
3) It's very reasonable that the GTR will be replaced, sooner or later.
As Dan explains, this theory does not need any concept of "Force", but
it needs other concepts, like "Time". Maybe, the next genius will not
explain why time is slower.... maybe it will state that time does not
exist... that is, he will formulate a new theory with no need for the
concept of "Time". Who knows?
4) Anyway, the Natural Phenomenon is something else. The Natural
Phenomenon of Gravitation does not match any of the Laws we create. We
create intellectual patterns in order to handle all natural phenomena
(not only gravitation) as we perceive them, like apples falling, planets
flying and so on.
Let's call the three laws (LFS, NLG, GTR).... roads. Intellectual good
roads, indeed. They have been working for centuries, and they have
allowed our walk towards the understanding of reality. In the
Language/Reality thread you used the distinction between language and
natural phenomena, and I don't deny that this distinction can be very
useful.
But IMO it's also useful to keep in mind that the distinction is itself
an intellectual creation: of course, the NLG has been created as a
static pattern in order to handle reality, but in the same exact moment,
it begun a *real* existence of its own. Actually, Pirsig used it to
discuss the "ghosts of rationality", something that has nothing to do
with apples and planets... and that Newton could not imagine. That is:
even the Newton's law is real. It's real like falling apples. The
Newton's Law discussed by Pirsig is NOT another thing: it is the same
Law originally formulated by Newton... but considered as a Natural
Phenomenon interacting and conditioning our way of life.
That's why roads are "true", or "real". Maybe they will never lead us to
truth, surely they belong to reality... and this is not secondary. As
you know, I do believe that not only intellect is able to build roads.
In this sense, I'd state that the Natural Phenomenon of Gravitation is
real and we perceive it, not diversely from the way we, like Pirsig,
perceive the Natural Phenomenon of the real Newton's Law of Gravitation.
But also, I'd state that the Natural Phenomenon has a counterpart: an
inorganic "road" that make it possible for apples to fall, RiTually,
when they are mature, independently of any Intellectual Road we will
ever build.
ELEPHANT:
> It's one thing to say that all roads *can* be true
> (ie: it is possible for a road, whatever road it is, to
> be in the end a road to the truth)...
>
> And quite another to say that all road *are* true
> (ie: whichever road it is and whichever direction
> you are travelling in it is the right road)....
>
>
> The first claim I accept - intellectual development is
> a tortuous thing, and there are many switch-backs in
> it, so that sometimes a wrong turn can then
> become fortuitous later. Going what looks like the wrong
> way now, we might still come right in the end, and thus
> redeem the road we travelled. Hairpin bends.
>
> But the second claim I do not accept - one way goes to the top of the
> mountain, the other way to the bottom, however complex the route.
MARCO:
You can say that you are going to the top or to the bottom only if you
already know the road, or if someone else gave you a map. But if this is
the first time you run a road, and you have no maps, you can't say where
the road is leading. The only thing you can say is if the road is
comfortable or not. The only road you really know is the one under your
feet.
ELEPHANT:
> Even a tangled string has two ends - unless it has no ends at all.
>
>
> Perhaps this is your point. The string has no ends.
MARCO:
Well, if the end is Truth, do you know someone who has been already
there? Maybe Jesus, or Buddha. Maybe... I'm not so sure.
ELEPHANT:
> Are you thinking of the quote from Heraclitus, Marco? "The way
> up and the way down are one and the same"? Maybe you'd like
> to explain to me what Heraclitus was on about in that fragment?
>
> I'm guessing that it has something to do with circles - sttrings
> with no ends. But I don't think, well, I don't think this applies to
> the human condition. Our strings have ends, and we can call
> them good and evil (or high and low Quality).
>
> Maybe Heraclitus' point was that the way up is the way down *so far as
> securing release from pain* is concerned. But that sounds more like
> a comment on the reversability of roads to sensual enjoyment than
> a comment on the reversability of roads to the Truth. Because
> ofcourse "the way up is the way down" is supposed to be True
> somehow, isn't it? - You aren't supposed to reverse *that* road,
> atleast.
>
MARCO:
I love Heraclitus. Yes, his fragment about ways is very interesting. I
think it is not about circles at all. The Italian writer Luciano de
Crescenzo in his book about Heraclitus "Panta Rei" shows the
similarities between Heraclitus and Lao Tze. They both describe reality
as an harmony of oppositions. Actually, the "UP" exists only if the
"DOWN" exists too. And those UP and DOWN depend on our position... you
are UP in England, I'm DOWN in Italy.... but where do we are seen from
.... Mars?
My free interpretation is that if we split DQ and sQ, true and false, up
and down, we just build two ends, but *really* we are on the road.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:10 BST