From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 09 2004 - 19:45:45 GMT
Hi all
I would like to put forward a position
on truth to see who agrees/disagrees.
I think we can take truth in a very simple way.
There is only one world, one truth. Is there a cat
behind the wall? Answer: yes or not. Does gravity
pull on bodies according to distance in an inverse
square law? Answer: yes or no. Which hole did the
electron go through? -Well, neither actually, so there
is something wrong with the question.
Now to have any understanding/knowledge of the truth
requires an appropriate language applied to patterns
that we suspect operate in certain repeating ways.
Hence, all knowledge is a human creation, therefore it
is utterly fallible, and subject to all the epistemological problems
the post modernists suggests. However, the truth remains.
We can test our knowledge against nature, even though nature
is a very elusive conversational partner. She drives us mad.
We cannot just ask is there a cat behind the wall?
She does not answer that question. We can put some milk
behind the wall and nature will give us an empty saucer back.
We might be on to something. We send some mice in and they
rarely make it back again, etc. We build up theories of entities
(cats) and their behaviour under different controlled conditions.
We name things, we describe patterns, and on we go. It can go very
badly wrong, but we make overall progress. After a while we revise
things and discoveer curious entities, maybe a cat-fish that can also swim.
And an entity is only a set of patterns under certain conditions, a human
being is a certain way of looking at the patterns of a particular
configuration
of molecules, and that again as patterns of atoms, or going the other
way certain organic material becomes a human and then gets fed back
to bacteria and round the food chain pattern it goes. All different levels
of patterns, all exhibiting the most amazing fullness of potential, from
quantum particles to become atoms, to become suns, to become molecules, to
become seas, to become plants, to become food, to become animals, to become
a horse and cart, to become human, to become writing, to become music, to
become
emotions, etc etc ...
Agree/disagree?
regards
David M
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