From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Feb 08 2004 - 11:45:21 GMT
Bo
The rest of the responses to your last post.
Bo said:
We agree that Plato was the the proto-SOMist and that his "truth"
compares to "the objective", but then you seem to say that there are
many truths ...many axioms and brought this passage from ZMM
Paul:
Yes, to show that Plato's conception of truth i.e. it is there to be
recollected/discovered, was ill-founded. Poincaré showed that the
starting axioms of geometry are based on an aesthetic preselection to
form practical definitions - a kind of rhetoric, really.
> "Poincaré concluded that the axioms of geometry are conventions, our
> choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts,
but
> it remains free and is limited only by the necessity of avoiding all
> contradiction. Thus it is that the postulates can remain rigorously
true
> even though the experimental laws that have determined their adoption
are
> only approximative. The axioms of geometry, in other words, are merely
> disguised definitions." [ZMM p.270]
Bo said:
But there is no disagreement at all. My point is that the new S/O
reality that emerged with the Greeks by and by resulted in science and
technology and modernity as we know it.
Paul:
More or less.
Bo said:
The fact that geometrical axioms and scientific truths have been shown
to be provisional or conventions (in MOQish: from the social level)...
Paul:
Scientific truths are intellectual patterns, just not objective.
Bo said:
...does not diminish the enormous static good that the S/O represents.
Paul:
Agreed, the belief in an external independent reality is one of the
highest quality intellectual patterns - one of the best truths - there
is.
Paul previously said:
> P.S. As an aside, I'm currently writing a report on Information
Quality
> for a company in the UK, nowhere does a sharp subject/object
distinction
> or the search for immortal principles come into the writing of the
report
> yet it is clearly not just a social activity. A manipulation of
abstract
> symbols to convey (hopefully) coherent ideas describes what I'm doing
> perfectly. What level would BoMOQ put my report writing in?
Bo said:
In intellect naturally. You are striving to be impartial, to say
something that is objectively true
Paul:
No, I'm not. I'm constructing a conceptual framework that may help a
company understand something new about their business. The terms I'm
defining don't point to anything existing objectively before I defined
the terms. It is a perception of their business that I'm presenting
them, and that is understood by the company. The "truth" of what I say
is determined by the clarity and coherence of my ideas and their
practical applicability - in other words, by its value.
Bo said:
Intellect [Paul: by which you mean S/O] is so cemented in the Western
world that nobody in her/his right mind can base "reports" - or anything
else - on anything else than the above said objectivity
Paul:
I disagree, and this is my point - my report is not objective but it is
intellectual. Your definition of intellect is too restrictive, at both a
philosophical level and an everyday level.
Regards
Paul
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 08 2004 - 11:44:31 GMT