epistomology 4

bob - ggarret1 wrote: Yes, Einstein used Pythagorean?s Theorem in his derivation, assuming it to be ?true?, then, paradoxically, asserts that it is not a physical reality. My point is, even if the theorem is not a physical reality it is still ?true? based on metaphysical reasoning. It?s applications to physical reality validate the theorem and, therefore, validity of the metaphysical method of achieving knowledge.

OK so the Pythagorean's theorem is not a physical reality but it's applications to physical reality validate not only the theorem, but the metaphysical method by which it was derived. You can see where a guy would get confused. Your position is doubly confusing (confused?) by the fact that the theory was not derived from pure metaphysics anyway. It was based on observation and logic in these three dimensions we happen to be aware of inhabiting and where the formula stands up perfectly well.

In any event you should check out the back of my wifes head. I bet that thing is flat on five dimensions!

ggarret1 - We say one plus one is equal to two. This can only be true if we assume one is equal to one. It may seem obvious that one is equal to itself. Yet, we say we have ten fingers even though two of them are thumbs. No two apples are exactly equal though each is one apple.

When we apply numbers to the real world one is never equal to one. Hence, Einstein?s remark that two plus two is never equal to four. Numbers, as such, do not exist outside of the human mind. They are an innate property of consciousness - metaphysical truth with no external existence ? knowledge drawn from the void.

bob - ggarret1 wrote: We say one plus one is equal to two. This can only be true if we assume one is equal to one. It may seem obvious that one is equal to itself. Yet, we say we have ten fingers even though two of them are thumbs. No two apples are exactly equal though each is one apple.


Balderdash. When we say we have ten fingers what we mean is we have ten digits. Four fingers and two thumbs. If enough of us do that often enough the meaning of the word "finger" will gradually expand to include the notion of thumbs and this change will come to be reflected in dictionairies. It will no longer be "incorrect" to say we have ten fingers. That is how language works.


Quote:
When we apply numbers to the real world one is never equal to one. Hence, Einstein?s remark that two plus two is never equal to four. Numbers, as such, do not exist outside of the human mind. They are an innate property of consciousness - metaphysical truth with no external existence ? knowledge drawn from the void.


Nah, it's knowledge drawn from the observation that, for example, on a cold winter night it's better to have two logs on the fire than one. The concept of numbers may be an invention of the human mind in but it is an invention based on an awful lot of observation. Once things have been sorted into catagories according to similar properties it is natural as can be to start counting concrete examples of those "things". From there it is a logical matter to start dealing with numbers as pure abstractions and to formulate laws based on reason concerning the behaviour of those numbers. If you want to know whether those laws work the place to check is in the physical world.

ggarret1 - A magnificent mathematical construct such as the Mandelbrot set http://gairrett.tzo.com is not a human invention but a human discovery. An alien mathematician in the Andromeda galaxy studying the properties of complex numbers would discover the same set with the same bizarre and beautiful properties. A million universes could come and go yet this eternal truth would remain.

It has no external existence. It exists only in the metaphysical sense.

triplexpat - The concept of any number or quantity is a human invention, just like any word is a means to convey thought. But just because we don't have a definition for an object, an emotion, an action or an effect doesn't mean they don't exist. I can't claim to be so deftly versed in the philosophical arts as you fine gentlemen, and I'm not sure which side of the argument this will fall, but the four pages of this thread sound like a "if a tree falls in the woods..." kind of discussion (and that question was invented to EMPTY one's mind!) I happen to believe the tree does make a sound, just as I believe the mathematics that created the fractal art has always existed, it just hadn't been terms we could understand before--(and by 'we' I mean mathematicians...I never made it past calc!) It has no acknowledged bearing on us until we name and define it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just a matter of proving it, ie gravity. Before we defined it as a law, we were still governed by its effect.
I can believe a tree I don't hear makes a sound because trees I have seen and heard fall make a sound and I can infer that the unwitnessed tree makes a sound as well.[/b]

bob - ggarret1 wrote: It has no external existence. It exists only in the metaphysical sense.


Examples of it exist on our computer screens.

fred smith - This has gotten a bit off of my original point which was to discuss intelligent design with no caps. Bob seems like many others to be enamored of science but does not realize its limitations. Let{s take a few comments from HeideggerѠ

Science can reach a point where there is a crisis in its basic concepts. The point he is making is that the sciences are capable of reaching a state where the concepts that ground them become open to question. The sciences cannot, he says, be grounded in the sciences themselves. They take the conceptual ordering of reality that grounds their own possibility for granted. They presuppose the condition in order to investigate entitites of a particular kind but they cannot investigate the condition of which an entity is an entity. They must presuppose this in order to continue. Sciences are concerned only with entities in the world, i.e. their subject matter. Science is based on concepts but concepts are frozen in time in order to study a specific entity at a specific time, but since we are all being in the process of becoming how do you justify metaphysically stopping and freezing something for that moment that science needs when by our very nature we are in a constant state of change that defines our very being.

Also science and being are in time so subtract time and what happens to these?

Therefore, my point is that I find it laughable that so many people put such "faith" in science. Again, I am not saying that we do away with science but this laughable idea that everyone today has everything figured out is well simply wrong. That is why many scientific minds have remained religious because they at least know the limits of what they can know. Does this mean that they want to quit their jobs as scientists to become pastors, priests or rabbis? No. It means that they fully understand the limits of science while still being interested in pursuing scientific enquiries withing the framework of what is possible.

So again, I once made a point earlier that too much education can be a bad thing. What I mean by this is that so many people today with their limited understandings of the true nature of science, metaphysics and religion believe that they have it all figured out. There is an arrogance that is sweeping in its contempt for religion. Yet, it will come as a surprise to many of these rational thinking beings that many of those who remain religious have gone beyond them in terms of study on the subject and have chosen to remain religious because of what we have learned.

Religion is not necessarily about the stereotypical Bible banging Baptist who faints when touched by a healer. Nor is it about some snake charmer in India nor is it about some Muslim terrorist. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and many of the other great traditions have long understood science, rational investigation, etc. and have found as many of us have that there are limits to how far it can go, how adequate it can be in terms of explaining the universe and what we know about it. Therefore the irony here may be that while thinking they have some sort of superior intellectual and rational basis for their thinking, those who are most contemptuous of religion are in fact the ones who are most lacking in the intellectual and rational qualities that they seem to mistakenly believe that they possess in abundance.

There, I have said my piece so peace brothers and sisters. haha

bob - Your Heidegger is gobbledy gook that nobody can understand. What we know is that there exists a swirling mass of matter and energy that comes together and falls apart on a scale so vast that there are literally no words to describe it. Somehow this swirling mass gave rise to consciousness on this planet. Nobody knows how but they might someday somehow discover that too. In any event this consciousness that has arisen is an anxious, creative little beast that likes to know the answers to questions. Religion provides answers but they are not real answers.

[quote="fred smith"] Let{s take a few comments from Heidegger [quote]

Indeed.

Quote: They presuppose the condition in order to investigate entities of a particular kind but they cannot investigate the condition of which an entity is an entity.


What does this mean?

Quote: They must presuppose this in order to continue. Sciences are concerned only with entities in the world, i.e. their subject matter. Science is based on concepts but concepts are frozen in time in order to study a specific entity at a specific time, but since we are all being in the process of becoming how do you justify metaphysically stopping and freezing something for that moment that science needs when by our very nature we are in a constant state of change that defines our very being.


Being in the process of becoming? Is that a fancy way of saying that things are changing all the time? I think we had that figured out already, and I think it was the study of chemistry that really banged it home.

Quote: Also science and being are in time so subtract time and what happens to these?


Everything stops moving? Heck, I dunno, you tell me.

Quote: Therefore, my point is that I find it laughable that so many people put such "faith" in science.


You don't really think it is funny. You just say that because you have said it so many times before and can't think of anything original to say now.

Quote: Again, I am not saying that we do away with science...

Oh really professor? And what would lead you to such a profound conclusion?

Quote: but this laughable idea that everyone today has everything figured out is well simply wrong.

Another stunning insight! Anyway since I am the only one participating on this side of the thread and since those are my words I think I can safely assume that they are actually directed at me. I know you are a little simple so let me explain that I don't really think that I have it ALL figured out, just that I have it figured out as well as anyone else here and certainly as well as you. If I really wanted to learn more I'd talk to a scientist.

Quote: There is an arrogance that is sweeping in its contempt for religion. Yet, it will come as a surprise to many of these rational thinking beings that many of those who remain religious have gone beyond them in terms of study on the subject and have chosen to remain religious because of what we have learned.


And many didn't. Go figure.

Quote: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and many of the other great traditions have long understood science, rational investigation, etc. and have found as many of us have that there are limits to how far it can go, how adequate it can be in terms of explaining the universe and what we know about it.

What religions do is tell people the answers when really there are no answers. Nobody knows the answers to the basic issues raised here.

Quote: Therefore the irony here may be that while thinking they have some sort of superior intellectual and rational basis for their thinking, those who are most contemptuous of religion are in fact the ones who are most lacking in the intellectual and rational qualities that they seem to mistakenly believe that they possess in abundance.


I never said I was contemptuous of religion. I think religion and the literature and music and philosophies it inspires are awesome manifestations of the profound anxieties and longings involved. Absolutely stunning, and ultimately, absolutely flawed.

fred smith - Bob, you simply have no understanding of the basic concepts that underlie philosophy or metaphysics. Have you ever studied any of this? Obviously not. Okay, have your fun. But it is impossible to have a debate with someone about these issues when that person so clearly does not have even a clue about where and how debate on this has developed. You can pretend all you want that you are just a commonsense kind of guy though the first two of those syllables would perhaps be more accurate than a total inclusion of all three, but the actual underpinnings to which you seem to think that you have free latitude to base your ideas on concepts that have not been conceptually proved. Anyway, enough from me.

Elegua - fred smith wrote: Bob, you simply have no understanding of the basic concepts that underlie philosophy or metaphysics. Have you ever studied any of this? Obviously not. Okay, have your fun. But it is impossible to have a debate with someone about these issues when that person so clearly does not have even a clue about where and how debate on this has developed. You can pretend all you want that you are just a commonsense kind of guy though the first two of those syllables would perhaps be more accurate than a total inclusion of all three, but the actual underpinnings to which you seem to think that you have free latitude to base your ideas on concepts that have not been conceptually proved. Anyway, enough from me.


Try reading some Feynman - there is a very good lecture on just this very subject in The Joys of Finding Things Out. There is no crisis of basic concepts in science as the basis of science is an unending scepticism and questioning of all things, including itself. Me thinks Heidegger is confusing engineering with science.