Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.origins,net.religion,net.philosophy Subject: Re: Fundamentalist Materialism Message-ID: <1320@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 11:29:27 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1320 Posted: Fri Jul 26 11:29:27 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 14:36:00 EDT References: <861@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>, <1288@pyuxd.UUCP> <891@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 146 Xref: watmath net.origins:1943 net.religion:7281 net.philosophy:2121 >>I'm not sure I understand the line of thinking here. Because scientific >>tools do not allow us to see EVERYTHING there is, we thus take our >>subjective minds' word for the rest? >>[...] >>Note that all these systems you describe, art, music, politics, are >>human-defined systems where people make the rules (supposedly). [ROSEN] > Exactly! See, you *do* understand the line of thinking. There exist > *real things* where people, and people alone (no science, no "laws of > nature"), make the rules. And because scientific rules *can't* allow us > to see them, we *must* take our subjective minds' word for it. What > alternative is there? Write them off as "unreal"? Breaking a law which > has no physical existence and which is completely unscientific will > nevertheless have very real consequences. I don't think treating them > as "unreal" would be particularly wise. [BETH CHRISTY] Our conversation was talking about the nature of the physical world, not about mental constructs with which people organize the physical world. We were talking, not about human codifications of notation within such human-defined systems, but subjective claims as to the nature of things in the physical world as purported by people's wishful thinking notions. Ronald Reagan is President because a popular consensus does determine who is President in THAT system. Are you saying that there are such things as free will, souls, etc. just because we say so? >>We are not so all powerful as to make the rules of the physical world >>itself. Though some might proclaim "I believe in XXXX because I say >>so." Much as some of us might like, we can't do that except in our >>imagination, and that has no bearing on what actually happens outside >>of our brains. > I assume (since you sign yourself as Rich) that you're male, and I assume > (since I'm guessing that pyuxd is in Piscataway) that you live in the US. > Try wearing a dress, hose, high-heels and makeup to work tomorrow. You'll > find some very real hostility and other very real emotions that have a very > real effect on what happens "outside of our brains". There's no "law of > nature" that prevents you from wearing that outfit, but there are rules > that people have made up that are real enough to prevent it. In that > sense, at least, they do indeed have bearing on something's physical > existence. Funny, the last time I did that no one noticed. :-) Of course there are no "laws of nature" there, human interaction "rules" of "conduct" are (often arbitrarily) defined by people. Why would going against a societal grain have an effect on people? Why not examine the biological and psychological nature of humans, the kinds of constructs they build, etc. At root level, there are very physical reasons for all these things happening: they don't just magically appear! As Poirier mentioned in another article (and others, too), just because the interweaving physical forces are too complex for us to comprehend in one swell foop, doesn't mean they don't happen. > Similarly, breaking the unscientific law can have some pretty > noticable physical consequences. But (I think) the real issue is: can it be > real even if it doesn't have a bearing on something's *physical* existence? The question has nothing to do with the "real"-ness of such systems, for as I said above, if you were able to examine it much more closely, you would find a physical basis for all such things. >>>>Given how inaccurate the light has been at casting real illumination on >>>>reality, it's [SUBJECTIVITY] best not taken literally. >>> And how accurate has the light cast by science on crime been? Or on >>> marriage? Or on discussions of this type? You just can't see beyond your >>> precious *physical* reality, and anything that doesn't fit into it must >>> not exist (i.e., be real). >>And for you, anything that someone says that claims to talk about things >>BEYOND our "physical reality" is taken ipso facto as truth. That's the only >>alternative there is to what you describe above. After all, how could you >>DARE to claim that such a person is lying JUST because he/she has no hard >>proof of his/her wild notions. Thus, you MUST accept them all! > Well now you're just being silly. Saying "some things exist beyond the > scientific, physical world" is just eons away from saying "everything that > anyone thinks is real is, in fact, real". Yet in the realm of things that I had been discussing (free will, souls, etc.---human subjective preconceptions about the physical world rather than the mental construct systems you have been speaking of), if you can accept one you can (and must) accept ALL such notions, since they are equally valid as views of the physical world. That's not "silly" at all! That's the only reasonable course of action. > Politics, art, music, all those > "human-defined systems where people make the rules" are real. There's no > *hard, scientific* proof that Reagan is president, nor is there *hard, > scientific* proof that an original Rembrandt is worth millions of dollars. What does "hard scientific proof" mean in this context? If you follow the rules of scientific inquiry, learn the rules of the system involved, you can obtain an answer. Sounds clear to me. And, again, there are physical roots to even these human-made systems at base level. > But there's plenty more evidence that those two facts are true than there > is evidence that the ghosts of all our ancestors live in the coffee cups > sold by a little store in Maine. Well, you just said it. Such evidence is REAL evidence, because it is based on facts about the system, not subjective notions. Ronald Reagan is the President, that's a fact that can be verified. If you were to say that *YOU* are Ronald Reagan (or Teddy Roosevelt: "another yellow fever victim?" :-) just because you say so, THAT is the type of subjective notion worth debunking. And the notions of free will, "supernatural", religious experiences, etc., all similar types of notions, since they all have equal evidence, must be given equal weight, either they're ALL right, or none of them are to be accepted. >>> *Why* aren't they real? Is it because you only define as real those >>> things to which science applies? Then of course nothing that you think is >>> real is beyond science - it's contrary to the defintion. >>Bullshit. The reason they are not "real" is because they depend upon >>observers to label existing things with these qualities. > I *still* think you're saying "it's only real if science deals with it". Well, that's fine, because that's not what I said above. You've just offered a perfect example of why we shouldn't accept subjective notions. I made a statement above, and you, in your subjective opinion, said that I was saying something else! You've got your cart before your horse. Those things are not considered "unreal" because they don't apply in science, they don't apply in science because they should be considered unreal, because there's no objective evidence for them. > It's science that requires that things be independent of the observer, that > things be reproducible by anybody with similar technique. The real-world, > everyday humans I deal with don't (except that we require at least a general > agreement on the meaning of words so we can communicate). The "real-world humans" that you deal with simply lead their (our) lives making assumptions about things and NOT being rigorous in the way they deal with the world. AND VERY OFTEN THEY (WE) ARE WRONG!!!! Precisely because we were not rigorous. When you assume that someone has just done something to deliberately insult you, when in reality there were some circumstances in his/her own life that caused him/her to act in a way YOU interpreted as insult. Such things happen all the time in human interaction. That's precisely why scientists, when making observations about the world, only call them facts after severe and rigorous verification. Since subjective notions cannot be so verified (without brain surgery and analysis techniques not within our capabilities yet), they cannot be accepted as fact. It's that simple. When the only evidence for a phenomenon is "I say so", that's grounds for throwing it out. -- "Meanwhile, I was still thinking..." Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr