[MD] Probability

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Hi Ian (Case mentioned),

Glad you liked "Who Am We?". I figured the mere mention of "poststructuralist"
would have those trapped in modernity screaming the Nihilistic Boogeyman Song
(not to mention she studied this in PARIS! Bloody French Commies...), which is
why I harkened this back to James Carse, whose Finite and Infinite Games also
speaks on the fracturedness of identity (as it relates to "roles").

>From one who finds beauty in paradox and recursion to another, I continue to
find it amusing that the "A Ha! You made an absolute statement about
non-absoluteness" continues to be put out there. The very fact that we are
trying to represent "reality" symbolically will mean, by virtue of what
representae are, that the core will always consist of paradox and recursion. I
am reminded of Margritte's famous "The False Mirror", which hangs (albeit in
poster form, Warholist that I am) on the wall of my office (along with
Gericault's "Shipwreck" and of course Feininger's "Barfuesserkirche II" (Church
of the Minorities)). As the "eye" attempts to symbolically encode "what it
sees", their will always be a core that remains a mystery. "Can an omnipotent,
all-powerful God create a rock that He cannot lift?" Paradox. (I've heard one
answer to this that says "He can do both. He can create the rock, and then he
can lift it". Whatever that means.)

Case's point on "beyond a reasonable doubt" is about as close as we can get to
these "Absolute Truths". I'm not sure why its so difficult to grasp. There is a
difference between making a statement that begins, "Although I am forced by a
symbolic language to make the following statement that sounds like an absolute
truth, I accept that there may or may not be a margin of error that would make
the statement one day false..." and "Because we have to speak with language
that forces us to make Absolute sounding Truth statements, that means there is
without any doubt Absolute Truths..."

"I was born". For example. Pragmatically, I accept it as "as absolute a
statement as I can make". Which is quite different from "its absolutely true".
Since I can't resolve the "Brain in a Vat" dilemma, I hold that my statement is
really only provisional, "absolute" only in a pragmatic sense.

Einstein (as quoted in ZMM) makes a similar case to Case's "absolute can only be
in the "now"). "Evolution has shown that at any given moment out of all
conceivable constructions a single one has always proved itself absolutely
superior to the rest." This statement allows for what I'd call "relative
absoluteness", that is, something may be "absolutely superior" at the "given
moment", but that hardly makes it "absolutely superior" for all time. "Having
coffee this morning" was "absolutely superior" for me than "not". But does this
mean that "having coffee in the morning" is "always absolutely superior" than
"not", for everyone, for all time? No.

Anyway, I'm not sure why the impetus for some is to run away from paradox, or
imply that it is some shortcoming of others. It is manifest at the core of our
symbollically encoded experience. And my pop-culture reference from the day is
from Spock (Star Trek, not Benjamin)...

"The Gates to Truth are guarded by Paradox and Confusion. And if we attempt to
enter by turning our backs on them, the Truth will remain closed behind us." (I
think this was Star Trek: The Motion Picture)