[MD] Intention changes physical world (some questions)

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Case --

I was about to congratulate you for this statement posted to Platt on 1/17:

[Case]
> Mathematics is a vocabulary and syntax for describing
> precisely all sorts of relationships. We assume that these
> relationships could be understood and expressed by any
> sufficiently complex entity.  But in the form that we
> understand and express them they are human ideas.

But I stopped after re-reading your conclusion:

> My question all along here has been how do ideas and
> consciousness exist outside of the physical processes
> that sustain them?  How can they be understood as other
> than the product of those processes?

It was then that I realized the question you were "begging" [Laramie has
told me I don't know what 'begging the question' means] the wrong question.
Relations represent man's intellectualized perspective of objective
otherness.  It is man himself who sees relationships and constructs
geometry, mathematics, evolution and spatial distribution to express them.
So the question I would have expected is: How can physical processes be
understood as anything but cognizant ideas?

Suprisingly, unless you've made a New Year's resolve to be more amiable, we
seem to be in agreement -- even "wholeheartedly so" on many of the remaining
issues we've discussed.

You ask:
> So, having failed to convince you of the value of falsification,
> how about parsimony?

Falisification is a valid test of scientific theory, hence is valuable; but
the debate is meaningless because it is well embedded in the methodology of
Science.

Parsimony is a fancy 19th century word implying stinginess or "being tight"
with one's money.  I don't really know how it got picked up by scientific
philosophers, but I suppose it's the modern equivalent of Occam's razor (the
simplest theory is the best).  I'm all for that principle, and have
diligently tried to follow it throughout my thesis.

Incidentally, I'd be interested in knowing how I have "convinced [you] to be
more civil" by arguing with you.

Felicitous regards,
Ham