Hey Erin,
ERIN:
What about Bart Simpson showing us the sound of one hand clapping... I can
still hang on to that or can you mess with that too...
RICK:
A woman who philosophizes in Simpsons quotes... I could be in love
here...
Either way, it's great that you brought this up because if you'll
remember the episode this occurs in, Lisa is trying to use 'Zen koans' to
clear Bart's mind so he can win a mini-golf tournament. She gives him the
'one hand clapping' line to clear his thoughts, but she fails when Bart
'solves' that one. The Koan than finally stumps Bart is "If a tree falls in
the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Bart's first response is "Yeah.. sure it does...," at which point he makes
the sound of a loud crash. To which Lisa replies: "But Bart, how can sound
exist if there's no one there to hear it?" This is the point at which Bart
goes Zen (no mind).
Now, pretend that Boeree is Bart and I'm Lisa....
BOEREE
...What I meant by my statement was that the sound as a phenomenon (not just
as air waves) exists even without a listener. I do not think that a sound
happens only at the eardrum! I feel the same way about light: I believe
that light has colors before it actually hits the retina.
RICK:
From my reading so far, Boeree would not agree that qualities exist in
the interaction between the observer and the observed. He seems to put
'sound' and 'color' firmly in the realm of the observed. This seems to
contradict his assertion in the previous post that, "I do not reduce these
qualities to atoms or energies or anything physical. To me, these atoms and
such are just explanatory devices, good for helping us to predict and
control...."
Now he says that the 'explanatory device' of color exists whether or not
there's an observer to do any 'explaining'? This like saying an
'interpretation' exists regardless of whether anyone is 'interpreting'.
You're boy's got a limp in his argument that's pulling it in circles...
He confusing the pre-intellectual 'qualities' themselves with his
post-intellectual 'explanations' of them. By his own account, saying that
'light has colors before it hits the retina' is really saying nothing more
than 'explanation#1 has explanation#2 before it hits explanation#3." He'll
never get anywhere on that leg.
From an MOQ persepective we would say that Boeree's mistaken a set of
Static Intellectual Patterns for DQ itself. Is there 'sound' out there? NO!
There is ONLY Dynamic Quality!!! Any CONEPTS like 'sound', 'light',
'retinas', 'waves', etc., are all firmly in the Static realm... are
POST-Intellectual, and thus always would require an Intellect.... an
observer.
BOEREE
> This point of view is not without difficulties, though: We know that if
you
> are moving away from or towards a sound, its wavelength changes -- so
which
> sound-phenomenon is tied to that air wave? I think all sound ("white
sound").
> This is where the listener comes in: The listener only hears one
particular
> wavelength out of all of them based on his relative speed to the air wave
as
well as the speed of the air wave at zero relative speed.
RICK:
I'm not sure how this doppler-effect stuff is relevant. Boeree seems
to be addressing the notion that a single air-wave can have competeing
'interpretations' based on the position of the listener. True, a listener
only hears one of several wavelengths coming from an air wave... but what's
at issue here is if NO listener heard ANY of the waves, was there any
'sound'...
I stand by my assertion that the whole 'tree in the woods' thing is
really a definition game. And it's easily applied to Boeree's example using
light--- If 'color' is defined as the 'wavelength of the ray', it exists
without a retina. If 'color' is defined as 'the retina's interpretation of
a wavelength'.... well, you get it by now.
lazy on Sat afternoon,
rick
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