[MD] Static latching & faith

[Joseph Maurer]

Hi Scott,

Joe said:
IMO language games require rules. I do not think that Wikipedia is a good
umpire. For mathematics, and the physical sciences Gravity has been a better
umpire.

Scott said:
? What does gravity have to do with mathematics? In any case, I see
philosophy as a matter of arguing over umpires, which is to say that nothing
is a priori a good or bad umpire.


Joe:

IMO The formulation of the law of gravity, enabled mathematics to become a 
useful descriptive tool of quantity, and not just an intellectual exercise. 
I am sorry I left off 'the law of" before Gravity. IMO mathematics using a 
law of gravity for appeal for verification became 'semiotic'. E..g. 32 feet 
per second/per second. A language game of mathematics has an umpire in a 
law.

Joe said:
IMO at one point you chose L of CI (Logic of Contradictory Identity) as an
umpire. IMO one fork of that trident was empirical. If only one fork of the
MOQ is empirical, can the whole MOQ be called empirical by analogy, if a
trident is a real umpire? If the Metaphysics of DQ/SQ, where SQ is
apprehended mystically, implies that the mystical component is material,
then IMO the MOQ is empirical, and a good umpire. To hold the mystical
apart from the material, hinders evolution.

Scott said:I choose the LCI as a way to keep from falling off the Middle 
Way. That is
an umpire of sorts, I suppose. Mainly, though, it is warning about fixating
on understandable umpires. In any case, I think your concerns are irrelevant
to the question. We have no great difficulty in distinguishing empirical
theories from non-empirical ones if we stick to the traditional meaning of
'empirical'. But look at what you have just written. Mystical? material?
Holding them apart? Or not? When have we done one or the other? What does it
mean to "apprehend mystically"? And so forth. All these have to be
understood before we can even get to the "is it empirical" question.

Evolution is hindered if one does that which Wilber (and most of us here)
considers a crime: to ignore the transcendental. Calling the transcendental
the empirical just adds a red herring.


Joe:

I appreciate the warning not to become fixated on understandable umpires. 
Yet IMO a language game requires an appeal to law as an umpire. E.g., IMO 
evolution can apply to cosmic evolution as well as conscious evolution. He 
said she said often applies in the same sentence using the same word unless 
which type of evolution is specified. One type of evolution, consciolus, is 
moral, one, cosmic, is mechanical. To empirical and transcendental theories 
I would add 'semiotic' theories. IMO a semiotic theory can contain 'mystical' 
and 'material' with the law of evolution as the umpire. To 'apprehend 
mystically' is transcendental and 'apprehend with the senses' is empirical 
in a language game. IMO Without a law to appeal to, semiotics is similar to 
mathematics prior to the law of gravity, merely an intellectual exercise.

Joe