Cubes and the number three exist in a way not entirely dissimilar to mortgages and property. — Banno
There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code.
Once we break the stranglehold on our thinking by our animal extroversion*, we can affirm the reality of our whole world of human meanings and values, of institutions, nations, finance and law, of human relationships and so on, without the necessity of seeing them as "just" something else lower down the chain of being yet to be determined. — Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss
here are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. — Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss
And "objective reality" presupposes ...I think I made my point in regards to objective reality. — Pop
Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned. — Ibn Sina
I don't think that's an accurate use of "might"; the number of times those ideas have not been falsified suggest they are unlikely to be an example of error that results from being subject to human error.It might turn out that 1+2 does not equal 3? Or that the Bishop does not stay on its original colour? Or even that the earth is not roughly spherical? — Banno
I did not sense a consensus building in this regard. I'm very familiar with the perspective and why it's maintained. Well, here we agree. It seems to be the case people have "made up" a definition and failed to improve it.Then I don't agree. These are things we know. And I think you misunderstand the perspective I am taking here. Sure, you can make up any definition for "know" that you like. — Banno
Correction, in my version we must know things that are false, because it hinges on the existence of unknown errors. It is je ne sais quoi, "necessary"? I would prefer to sally forth, but as you see fit.So on your version you can know things that are not true. Fine. Time to shake my head and walk away. — Banno
Every measurement that has ever been taken since the beginning of measuring things has inherent error. If we can know things imperfectly, then it follows that part of what is known is false. Then, there is the problem of change. Suppose something is known by the classical definition and then it changes. Does something in the mind make this adjustment to maintain a mystical correspondence? Knowledge is either so limited by it's own definition that we can barely know anything or knowledge is imperfect like everything else humans ever did or will do.(...shakes head and walks away) — Banno
[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap? — bongo fury
[2] No, absolutely not. — bongo fury
[1] And tell me, do you think that adding a single grain could ever turn a non-heap into a heap? — bongo fury
Every measurement that has ever been taken since the beginning of measuring things has inherent error. — Cheshire
Granted, if we were having a discussion on measurement there is a more nuanced position that would be appropriate. I was attempting to demonstrate that even in the case of direct empirical contact we return without perfect data; as to imply that cases that are more inferential certainly carry a higher degree of plausible deviation in correspondence to the facts. If it holds true in the best possible case for the contrary then it is likely true in a typical case. I agree though it is an awkward way of using measurement error and arguably misleading.it may make better sense to see the process as one of dropping or replacing or reforming whole systems of measurement that were perfectly (absolutely) stable games in their own terms, and with their own margins for error. — bongo fury
Every measurement that has ever been taken since the beginning of measuring things has inherent error. If we can know things imperfectly, then it follows that part of what is known is false. Then, there is the problem of change. Suppose something is known by the classical definition and then it changes. Does something in the mind make this adjustment to maintain a mystical correspondence? Knowledge is either so limited by it's own definition that we can barely know anything or knowledge is imperfect like everything else humans ever did or will do. — Cheshire
To take the measurement example alone, lesson one in physics is dealing with errors. The bench is 10±0.9m long; the rock has a mass of 0.6±0.1kg, and so on. The error is part of what we know about the bench and the rock. — Banno
I would call it an improvement. Generally, the matter has been tossed out based on having been wrongly concluded.There's a compounding of issues in that post that detracts markedly from any benefit that might accrue from writing a reply. — Banno
I'll reserve thoughtful for sentimental topics; accurate to the human experience or the preferred definition?And that's the point of the approach I would promote: accurate and thoughtful use of language. — Banno
Good relativism is also about recognising that the absolutism only holds relative to the game, which can co-exist happily with other games.
Games can merge, of course, and then the relativity becomes complicated and might require loss of absolutism here and there. — bongo fury
Science is all about merging and reconciling and reformulating.. — bongo fury
So, you looked over the post — Cheshire
An example? — khaled
Can one atom look at itself, or can only a group of atoms look at themselves?'A physicist', said Neils Bohr, 'is just an atom's way of looking at itself'. — Wayfarer
I don't have any reservations about achieving absolutely correct knowledge. The inherent error was more of a red herring; which arguably worked. Yes, we know plenty of things in fullest sense of the term.No, over the thread. Just pointing out that absolutism has a non-cosmic variety, from which point of view correctness is absolutely achieved, and your notion of 'inherent error' is unnecessarily cosmic. — bongo fury
I misread a book on cats once in such a way that I thought it said the sounds they make imitate human language. I took it in a specific sense to mean a cat in Italy or a cat in England would meow in such a way that the speech of the owner carried over into a cat accent. I told this with great interest to my former lady who repeated it to her entire family. The laughter that followed is one of my fondest memories. I have known things that were false, what is to make me believe that can no longer be the case?Do you know things that are false? — Banno
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