[MD] Probability

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> > I wonder, Case, if you could assess the probability that your
> > probability theories are wrong. Also, since you claim we are always
> > "one step behind" reality and even that our looking at it changes it,
> > on what basis can you claim that our knowledge of probabilty is valid?
> > Or don't you?
> >
> [Case]
> I think it has be high probability of being correct but one of the
> reasons I posted it was to see if others agree. I believe I have started
> by making very few assumption about "the way things are." Gene's
> comments came in response to my justification for making one of them:
> that there is an external reality at all.
> 
> This is merely a sketch of what we can say about such a reality.
> 
> As for being "one step behind" I don't see any way around this but, if
> you can explain how we have direct apprehension of the physical world I
> would love to hear it.

Since you say we don't have access to the "real reality" it seems to me 
anything anybody says about it is pretty much guess work.

Further, your conclusion implies that man is blind because he has eyes, 
deaf because he has ears, deluded because he has a mind, and the things 
he perceives do not exist because he perceives them.

I reject this attack on man's ability to know reality. In fact, I 
reject the idea of a "real reality" as being redundant. By claiming 
man's perception of reality, since it is mediated by the senses, is 
only indirect, the question arises what would direct perception denote 
and by what means would it be denoted? 

No, the real guesswork is in the claim we can never know reality 
because our senses distort it by being "one step behind." Since we can 
never know reality, everything we think we know  becomes pure 
speculation. Not only does this declare Pirsig's criterion of truth, 
"agreement with experience," null and void, but puts metaphysics in the 
same category of gnomes, elves, leprechauns and fairies.    

But I could be wrong.

Platt