[MD] Science and the MOQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Surely true knowledge is not a matter of my say so. To that you 
object regularly, constantly, and consistently. So what then is true knowledge?

[Arlo]
I'm not even sure what you mean by "true knowledge", as opposed to 
"false knowledge"?

Knowledge is what we believe. It is based on our assumptions, 
assumptions that are culturally-derived. We value this knowledge 
based on how well it works. When it stops working, we change our 
assumptions, and our intellectual descriptions of nature change accordingly.

By "true", I take it you mean "objective". That which is not based on 
assumptions. And you yourself denied this was possible.

[Platt]
Intellectual patterns are analogous to what? Tea cups, computer software?

[Arlo]
Intellectual patterns ARE analogies. They are analogies we use to 
codify our experiences.

[Platt]
Not sure what you mean by "mediate" and "mediation."

[Arlo]
Means stands between, filters, organizes, shapes, highlights, 
focuses, orders, blinds, colors, selects, structures, and affords the 
contact between "intellect" and "bio-inorganic" patterns.

"Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived".

[Platt]
Seems to me we've been here before. All you are really saying IMO is 
that there are always other people around, whether in Descartes' 
times or ours, and that other people influenced his thinking, my 
thinking, and your thinking. Right?

[Arlo]
Nope. His thinking was made possible by his assimilation of French 
culture. It doesn't "influence" his thinking, it enables it.

"The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think..."

or drop the middle and express it as such...

"The seventeenth century French culture exists, ... therefore I am."