[MD] Probability

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Case <case at ispots.com>:

> [Platt]
> > 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.
> 
> [Case]
> Welcome to Philosophy 101.

Are you certain Philosophy 101 says our knowledge of reality is pretty much guess work?

> [Platt]
> > 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.
> 
> [Case]
> It should be fairly obvious that our senses are restricted in the
> wavelengths we are sensitive too, the frequencies we can here the
> chemicals we can detect. We have evolved a fairly decent set though.

Have not our instruments overcome some of our senses' shortcomings?
 
> [Platt]
> > 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?
> 
> [Case]
> This is not an attack. This is one of the basic problems of philosophy.

How would knowledge of reality gleaned from direct perception differ from our
"second hand" knowledge of reality?

> [Platt]
> > 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.
> 
> [Case]
> No you are correct. I hate to be the one to break it to you but
> epistomology is a bitch.

Then why aren't we discussing Mother Goose instead of the MOQ?






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